That's one big bean! Sir Anish Kapoor described liquid mercury as his inspiration for Cloud Gate. He sought to create a form that captured the movement in the surrounding park and the city beyond. The Bean's highly reflective surface, much like liquid mercury, appears ready to slosh about.
Yes, visitors are allowed to touch the Bean. Just try not to leave too many fingerprints and ruin the experience for others.
The Bean receives a power wash each day and a deep cleaning twice each year. During the deep clean, workers use nearly 40 gallons of detergent to bring the metallic surface back to its mirrored state. Construction on Millennium Park began in with the goal to open in time to celebrate the new millennium. Delays and cost overruns meant the park ended up opening in , nearly four years behind schedule.
City planners considered several prominent artists before settling on a proposal by Sir Anish Kapoor for a major artistic installation. Concerns about Kapoor's initial designs further delayed construction. Some feared the highly reflective surface might become dangerously hot in the summer or cold in the winter. Others worried it would be too cumbersome to maintain the necessary polish on a sculpture exposed to the elements.
All of this meant Cloud Gate was unveiled only in In the late s, urban planners in Chicago were looking to revitalize a prime piece of public space located just across Michigan Avenue from the Loop District. Having existed variously as a park, a rail yard, and a parking lot in the many decades that followed, the area was in need of a makeover when city planners decided to build a great urban park to celebrate the coming of the third millennium.
Despite significant construction delays and massive cost overruns, Millennium Park eventually opened to the public in In overcoming these challenges, city planners managed to construct a widely praised public greenspace that would go on to earn a place in many a Chicago resident's heart. Millennium Park lies at the extreme northwest corner of a far larger urban greenspace that comprises Maggie Daley Park , Grant Park , Lakefront Park, and more.
That Millennium Park manages to stand out among the others is a testament to the park's design and planning. Gehry's incorporation of flowing shapes and a trellis structure were meant to invoke a futuristic architecture befitting of a new millennium. Atelier One, a British engineering firm, teamed up with freelance engineer Chris Hornzee to design the internals of the Cloud Gate. The team chose to use a high-density polyurethane foam during construction of the final structure.
Sections were prefabricated and transported to Millennium Park for assembly. Under the mirror polished surface of the Bean are several framing components that keep the overall structure standing.
The interior was designed in such a way as to avoid structural overload at any one point. The frame allows the Bean to expand and contract along with changes in exterior temperature. During design and construction of Cloud Gate , the engineers tasked with bringing Sir Anish Kapoor's vision to fruition faced numerous challenges.
In considering building materials, stainless steel was quickly rejected due to its tendency to absorb heat from the surrounding environment. Heating during the day followed by cooling at night might well have led to cracks or other imperfections appearing on the sculpture's surface and thereby ruining the design.
Ultimately, engineers took inspiration from tried and true methods used in the shipbuilding industry and selected a wooden structure that could expand and contract with changes in temperature. Contrary to some urban legends, there is actually nothing contained inside the Bean aside from the basic structural elements, though at one point there was a rudimentary construction office located inside.
Sir Anish Kapoor, pictured above in , is an Indian-born British artist known for his conceptual works. The Cloud Gate is an icon of Chicago , and one of the best attractions that every visitor to the city should take the time to see.
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What is The Bean? Where is The Bean? From this article. Millennium Park. Published on September 7, by Kelsey O'Connor. Published on February 27, by Amy Bizzarri. Check in.
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