This is a picture of the Cloud Gate sculpture (affectionate known as “The Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium park. This 33 foot tall stainless steel sculpture reflects the Chicago skyline from the outside, and amuses visitors with a distorted glimpse of themselves while underneath.
You can see more pictures here or at Tricia’s Musings.
Anita
David – that what most Chicagoans I knew thought when the drawings were first shown (I lived in Chicago for 5 years). I find it funny how it’s gone from something to laugh at to a monument of admiration (personally I think it’s tres cool).
Denita TwoDragons
Any minute now, a door will appear in the side of it and a robotic alien eyestalk will peek out, asking for its “Navigator”…
–TwoDragons
Anita
yayo – that was one of the best movies ever! I had forgotten the name though. For years, I used to wonder if video games had secret levels and prizes like the one in that movie (although I figured my brother would win it, I wasn’t that much of a video game buff myself).
Dan
My understanding is that you are not s’posed to take pictures of that. If you are standing around with a camera, some hired thug (or policeman, if there is a difference in Chicago ((joke, just a joke I swear))) will tell you to stop. A couple years ago, a bunch of people decided to meet there at the same time and start taking pictures at once.
Maybe the policy’s changed.
Denita TwoDragons
Yayo and Anita–glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought of that! *LOL*
–TwoDragons
hannah
Dan – I went to Chicago twice in 2006 and took photos of Cloud Gate, and the police officers never had a problem with it. Maybe you weren’t allowed to take photos of it while it was under construction? Millenium park is a cool place, though – even though Cloud Gate is amazing, I think that Crown Fountain beats all! http://www.millenniumpark.org/artandarchitecture/crown_fountain.html I’ve never seen any kid look happier than they are playing at Crown Fountain!
Piotr
Police were actually stopping anyone with “professional equipment” from snapping photos, claiming the artist has a copyright on the work. There is obviously more than a few things wrong with that, but your average tourist can freely take photos.
Moon
If you set up a tripod, you can’t take pictures, unless you get a “license” from the Park District.
The artist owns the “rights” to the work and didn’t give them up by contract with the City.
When I first saw the plans for this, I was all “This is SOOOO coool!”. And, for a change of pace, the reality didn’t diminish that feeling – it’s still soooo coooool!
travis
i played the bagpipes under it during celtic fest to see if the sound would circle around and “envelop” me. kind of like when you stand in the center of a circular wall and talk (ie: you hear yourself in stereo), but it only seemed to amuse some tourists and piss off my pipe major. oh well.
Tricia
Thats strange. I commented yesterday but it didn’t go through. Maybe because I added a link to my flickr account?
I was thanking Anita for pointing many of you to my Cloud Gate photos. A few have visited. Thanks!
I have a lot more photos of The bean in my Chicago folder on my flickr account. You can reach it by going to my page and in the left sidebar I have a flickr badge. If you click on it you’ll be on my flickr site – just look for the chicago pics from there.
I think I’ve got about 15 photos of the bean (and I wasn’t stopped by the police as I took photos either). Some of the photos were taken underneath and they look really cool. Some even look like ink blots. Check it out if you’d like to.
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