Daley Bicentennial Plazathe Latin phrase, Hortus in Urbe apparently means Chicago Children's Museum Coming Soon
Won't somebody think of the troll children…
Back in September, when the nonsensical idea of putting the museum almost entirely underground was first floated, I compared it to sending children to the basement. Now the architects, the Chicago firm of Krueck & Sexton, are back with another plan, which is little more than a tweaked version of the old one.Their latest drawings reveal more clearly than ever that much of the $100 million museum would be crammed into what is now the East Monroe Garage, a gloomy subterranean space beneath Daley Bicentennial Plaza where the whirring of exhaust fans competes with the screeching of car tires.
[snip]
The tweaks to the architects’ plans are a transparent attempt to comply with the Ward rulings. The height of a glassy entry pavilion along Upper Randolph Street has been cut to 20 feet from 25, the architects say. Skylights in the park, which would bring lights and views to the museum’s vast netherworld, have shrunk to a height of 16 feet from 32. The heart of the museum’s case is that these aboveground additions would consume only 9,610 square feet of park space — the size of 1 1/2 tennis courts, the architects say — and give back 120,000 square feet of indoor activity space.
[snip]
Although its aboveground presence would be far smaller than the Field’s, the Children’s Museum represents a new threat to Grant Park: a melding of landscape and architecture, where a building is cut into a slope.
The park’s south end is filled with sloping sites where future generations could build additional museums. If they did, the park’s edges would be cluttered with cultural institutions that charged an admission fee. That would seriously undermine the park’s tradition of shared public space. But this marriage is bad for the museum too. That much is evident when you see how the design has evolved since last summer, from a mostly aboveground structure that took full advantage of the surrounding park views to its present, mostly subterranean state.
The architects claim that their new plan suffers no loss of natural light over the aboveground version, but only the gullible will swallow their idea that oblique views through a sunken courtyard will satisfy those inside. Visitors will see the sky, nearby skyscrapers and trees from the sunken “learning and play experience” spaces, but not the grass.
[From The Skyline | Chicago Tribune | Blog]
I've still never heard a good reason why the CCM can't just expand in its current location, Navy Pier. If they must move, there are dozens of better locations, spots that are not as controversial. Is it just stubbornness on the part of Mayor Daley and his minions, or something else as of yet undiscussed that necessitates the move to this exact spot? Again, kudos to Alderman Reilly of the 42nd Ward for fighting the good fight. Very happy to have voted for him over Burt Natarus.
Back story found in these posts• Grant Park Land Grab
• Chicago Astroturf Alert
• Keep Chicago Children's Museum Out of Grant Park
• Daley Vs. Reilly
and probably others.
