The Crown Fountain, one of the main tourist attractions in Chicago and designed by the Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, was enabled today to the public after a Which demanded almost a year of work and an investment of 3.7 million dollars.
The fountain, which consists of two 50-foot glass towers located at either end of a water mirror with black granite floor, was built 13 years ago as one of the outstanding works of the Millennium Park.
The towers serve as screens that project the faces of thousands of Chicago residents, who at one point seem to spit water on a waterfall that in the summer is the delight of children who come to the park and bathe in the fountain.
The interactive work of Plensa also attracts the elderly, who walk on their flat surface with the sensation of moving on the water.
Scott Stewart, the executive director of the park’s privately-funded park, said today that the passage of time had slowly degraded the quality of the projection in the towers.
It was necessary to replace many of the 22,000 glass bricks that serve as screens in each tower, in addition to installing in a new projection system with state-of-the-art LED technology, which now offers more defined and brilliant images, particularly in sunny days.
“This restoration was owed to the author of the play, to ensure the integrity of the fountain, which is one of the favorite attractions of the public that visits the park,” Stewart said in a statement.
Plensa, who annually visits Chicago as a professor at the Institute of Art, was consulted and approved the reform of the source, added the head of the foundation.
The Catalan artist, with works in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world, also recently exhibited in the park four monumental sculptures of girls’ heads, which were moved in parts from Barcelona and assembled in Chicago.
One of those heads, “Awilda, has subsequently been installed in the park next to the Perez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM), in front of the Bay of Biscay in Miami, Florida, where an official welcome was given last month.
The Millennium Park is visited annually by about 13 million people, according to information from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Space Events of Chicago City Hall.
