Jay Pritzker Pavilion

Boeing Galleries (North Boeing Gallery and South Boeing Gallery) are a pair of outdoor exhibition spaces within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The spaces are located along the south and north mid-level terraces, above and east of Wrigley Square and the Crown Fountain. In a conference at the Chicago Cultural Center, Boeing President and Chief Executive Officer James Bell to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced Boeing would make a $5 million grant to fund both the construction of and an endowment for the space.

Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a 24.5-acre (9.9 ha) section of northwestern Grant Park. Opened in 2004, the area was previously occupied by parkland, the Illinois Central rail yards, and parking lots. Featuring a variety of public art, outdoor spaces and venues, the park is bounded by Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive. In 2015, the park became the location of the city's annual Christmas tree lighting. Planning of the park began in October 1997. Construction began in October 1998, and Millennium Park was opened in a ceremony on July 16, 2004, four years behind schedule. The three-day opening celebrations were attended by some 300,000 people and included an inaugural concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. The park has received awards for its accessibility and green design. Millennium Park has free admission, and features the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, the Lurie Garden, and various other attractions. The park is connected by the BP Pedestrian Bridge and the Nichols Bridgeway to other parts of Grant Park. Because the park sits atop parking garages, the commuter rail Millennium Station and rail lines, it is considered the world's largest rooftop garden. Some observers consider Millennium Park the city's most important project since the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. It far exceeded its originally proposed budget of $150 million. The final cost of $475 million was borne by Chicago taxpayers and private donors. The city paid $270 million; private donors paid the rest, and assumed roughly half of the financial responsibility for the cost overruns. The construction delays and cost overruns were attributed to poor planning, many design changes, and cronyism. Many critics have praised the completed park. In 2017, Millennium Park was the top tourist destination in Chicago and in the Midwest, and placed among the top ten in the United States with 25 million annual visitors.

Chase Promenade (formerly Bank One Promenade) is an open-air, tree-lined, pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation. It is 8 acres (3.2 ha) and used for exhibitions, festivals and other family events as well as private rentals.The Chase Promenade has hosted the 2005 Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait photo exhibition, the 2008 Paintings Below Zero exhibition and the 2009 Burnham Pavilions. The Burnham Pavilions were the cornerstone of the citywide Burnham Plan centennial celebration.

The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance (also known as the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the Harris & Harris Theater or, most commonly, the Harris Theater) is a 1,499-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US. The theater, which is largely underground due to Grant Park-related height restrictions, was named for its primary benefactors, Joan and Irving Harris. It serves as the park's indoor performing venue, a complement to Jay Pritzker Pavilion, which hosts the park's outdoor performances. Constructed in 2002–2003, it provides a venue for small and medium-sized music and dance groups, which had previously been without a permanent home and were underserved by the city's performing venue options. Among the regularly featured local groups are Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Chicago Opera Theater. It provides subsidized rental, technical expertise, and marketing support for the companies using it, and turned a profit in its fourth fiscal year. The Harris Theater has hosted notable national and international performers, such as the New York City Ballet's first visit to Chicago in over 25 years (in 2006). The theater began offering subscription series of traveling performers in its 2008–2009 fifth anniversary season. Performances through this series have included the San Francisco Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Stephen Sondheim. The theater has been credited as contributing to the performing arts renaissance in Chicago and has been favorably reviewed for its acoustics, sightlines, proscenium and for providing a home base for numerous performing organizations. Although it is seen as a high caliber venue for its music audiences, the theater is regarded as less than ideal for jazz groups because it is more expensive and larger than most places where jazz is performed. The design has been criticized for traffic flow problems, with an elevator bottleneck. However, the theater's prominent location and its underground design to preserve Millennium Park have been praised. Although there were complaints about high priced events in its early years, discounted ticket programs were introduced in the 2009–10 season.

The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Maggie Daley Park (formerly, Daley Bicentennial Plaza) with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry and structurally engineered by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it opened along with the rest of Millennium Park on July 16, 2004. Gehry had been courted by the city to design the bridge and the neighboring Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and eventually agreed to do so after the Pritzker family funded the Pavilion.Named for energy firm BP, which donated $5 million toward its construction, it is the first Gehry-designed bridge to have been completed. BP Bridge is described as snakelike because of its curving form. Designed to bear a heavy load without structural problems caused by its own weight, it has won awards for its use of sheet metal. The bridge is known for its aesthetics, and Gehry's style is seen in its biomorphic allusions and extensive sculptural use of stainless steel plates to express abstraction. The pedestrian bridge serves as a noise barrier for traffic sounds from Columbus Drive. It is a connecting link between Millennium Park and destinations to the east, such as the nearby lakefront, other parts of Grant Park and a parking garage. BP Bridge uses a concealed box girder design with a concrete base, and its deck is covered by hardwood floor boards. It is designed without handrails, using stainless steel parapets instead. The total length is 935 feet (285 m), with a five percent slope on its inclined surfaces that makes it barrier free and accessible. Although the bridge is closed in winter because ice cannot be safely removed from its wooden walkway, it has received favorable reviews for its design and aesthetics.

McDonald's Cycle Center (formerly Millennium Park Bike Station) is an indoor bike station in the northeast corner of Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city of Chicago built the center at the intersection of East Randolph Street and Columbus Drive, and opened it July 2004. Since June 2006, it has been sponsored by McDonald's and several other partners, including city departments and bicycle advocacy organizations. The bike station, which serves bicycle commuters and utility cyclists, provides lockers, showers, a snack bar with outdoor summer seating, bike repair, bike rental and 300 bicycle parking spaces as of 2004. The Cycle Center is accessible by membership and day pass. It also accommodates runners and inline skaters, and provides space for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group.Planning for the Cycle Center was part of the larger "Bike 2010 Plan", in which the city aimed to make itself more accommodating to bicycle commuters. This plan (now replaced by the "Bike 2015 Plan") included provisions for front-mounted two-bike carriers on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses, permitting bikes to be carried on Chicago 'L' trains, installing numerous bike racks and creating bicycle lanes in streets throughout the city. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area's other mass transit providers, Metra and Pace, have developed increased bike accessibility. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was an advocate of the plan, noting it is also an environmentally friendly effort to cut down on traffic. McDonald's controversially claimed that, since it is providing a healthier menu and fostering grade school physical education in an effort to help its customers improve their health, sponsoring bicycle and exercise activity in the park augments the company's other initiatives.Environmentalists, urban planners and cycling enthusiasts around the world have expressed interest in the Cycle Center, and want to emulate what they see as a success story in urban planning and transit-oriented development. Pro-cycling and environmentalist journalists in publications well beyond the Chicago metropolitan area have described the Cycle Center as exemplary, impressive, unique and ground-breaking.

Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "the Bean" because of its shape, a name Kapoor initially disliked, but later grew fond of. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons). Kapoor's design was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and it is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties. The sculpture was the result of a design competition. After Kapoor's design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture's construction fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration in 2004, before being concealed again while it was completed. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally.

Lurie Garden is a 2.5-acre (10,000 m2) garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Designed by GGN (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol), Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses, shrubs and trees. It is the featured nature component of the world's largest green roof. The garden cost $13.2 million and has a $10 million endowment for maintenance and upkeep. It was named after Ann Lurie, who donated the $10 million endowment. For visitors, the garden features guided walks, lectures, interactive demonstrations, family festivals and picnics.The Garden is composed of two "plates" protected on two sides by large hedges. The dark plate depicts Chicago's history by presenting shade-loving plant material. The dark plate has a combination of trees that will provide a shade canopy for these plants when they fill in. The light plate, which includes no trees, represents the city's future with sun-loving perennials that thrive in the heat and the sun.

The Park Grill is the only full-service restaurant included in the multibillion-dollar Millennium Park project in Chicago, Illinois. Its outdoor seating area is the largest al fresco dining area in Chicago. It has placed among the leaders in citywide best-of competitions for best burger and is widely praised for its views. The exclusive location, the lucrative contract terms, the investor list, and a close personal relationship between a managing partner of the restaurant and the Chicago Park District's project manager led to a formal ethics investigation, court litigation, and extensive press coverage, and ranked among the most prominent scandals of the administration of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2005. The more than 80 investors include some of Daley's friends and neighbors. One of the most financially successful restaurants in Chicago, the Park Grill remains exempt from property taxes after a multi-year litigation which reached the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Burnham Pavilions were public sculptures by Zaha Hadid and Ben van Berkel in Millennium Park, which were located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Both pavilions were located in the Chase Promenade South. Their purpose was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, and symbolize the city's continued pursuit of the Plan's architectural vision with contemporary architecture and planning. The sculptures were privately funded and reside in Millennium Park. The pavilions were designed to be temporary structures.Both Pavilions were scheduled to be unveiled on June 19, 2009. However, the Pavilion by Hadid endured construction delays and a construction team change, which led to nationwide coverage of the delay in publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Only its skeleton was availed to the public on the scheduled date, and the work was completed and unveiled on August 4, 2009. The van Berkel pavilion endured a temporary closure due to unanticipated wear and tear from August 10–14.

McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink or McCormick Tribune Plaza is a multi-purpose venue within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. On December 20, 2001, it became the first attraction in Millennium Park to open. The $3.2 million plaza was funded by a donation from the McCormick Tribune Foundation. It has served as an ice skating rink, a dining facility and briefly as an open-air exhibition space. The plaza operates as McCormick Tribune Ice Rink, a free public outdoor ice skating rink that is generally open four months a year, from mid-November until mid-March, when it hosts over 100,000 skaters annually. It is known as one of Chicago's better outdoor people-watching locations during the winter months. It is operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs rather than the Chicago Park District, which operates most major public ice skating rinks in Chicago. For the rest of the year, it serves as Plaza at Park Grill or Park Grill Plaza, Chicago's largest outdoor dining facility. The 150-seat park grill hosts various culinary events as well as music during its months of outdoor operation, and it is affiliated with the 300-seat indoor Park Grill restaurant located beneath AT&T Plaza and Cloud Gate. The outdoor restaurant offers scenic views of the park.

Wrigley Square is a public square located in the northwest section of Millennium Park in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District of the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The square is located at the southeast corner of the intersection of East Randolph Street and North Michigan Avenue. It contains the Millennium Monument, a nearly full-sized replica of the semicircle of paired Roman Doric-style columns (called a peristyle) that originally sat in this area of Grant Park, near Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street, between 1917 and 1953. The square also contains a large lawn and a public fountain.