Millennium Park, Chicago

Millennium Park is bordered by Michigan Avenue to the west, Columbus Drive to the east, Randolph Street to the North and Monroe Street to the South. It sits in an area that was once considered sacred to the Illinois Central Railroad. City planners developed Grant Park around the railroad tracks but, for decades, many still considered the area to be one of Chicago's less-than-beautiful spots.First planned in 1997 as a way to create new parkland in Grant Park and transform unsightly railroad tracks and parking lots, Millennium Park has evolved into the most significant millennium project in the world. And the reviews are already in. "Millennium Park," says one prominent civic leader, "will be a worthy creation for all time. It will define Chicago to the entire world as America’s greatest city."Located in downtown Chicago on Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets, the 24.5-acre park is an unprecedented center for world-class art, music, architecture and landscape design, where you can experience everything from interactive public art and ice skating to al fresco dining and free classical music presentations by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. Among the park’s prominent features is the dazzling Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the most sophisticated outdoor concert venue of its kind in the United States, designed by Frank Gehry, one of the world’s greatest living architects.

The skyscraper skyline of Chicago - second only to Manhattan's and in some ways more interesting - provides the backdrop to this magnificent new park, dignified by Frank Gehry's outdoor music pavilion. The other boundary of the park overlooks Lake Michigan itself. Improbably, the park also serves as a roof for railway lines running beneath. The roster of designers employed on the project is impressive indeed - including Kathryn Gustafson for the large-scale design and Piet Oudolf for the planting detail. In front of the Gehry pavilion, Oudolf has amassed plants in his trademark style of carefully engineered swathes and drifts of perennials and grasses, including nepeta, sea lavender and indigo (most of them native to the Chicago area). One of several smaller gardens within the park is the Lurie Garden, where Oudolf has created a tapestry of perennial planting enclosed by a high bastion hedge of beech, hornbeam and evergreens

What You'll Find There

Today, Millennium Park is a hubbub of activity nearly all year long. It's become well-known for its architecture and landscape design and has won awards for the innovative features found in the

Pritzker Pavilion

park.

Pritzker Pavilion

The centerpiece of the Millennium Park is the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion. This ultra-contemporary outdoor concert venue seats 4,000 with room for an additional 7,000 on the Great Lawn. Its design is spectacular and its sound system state-of-the-art. A host of different genres of concerts and other events are held at the Pritzker Pavilion at least once-a-week.

Harris Theater

If you prefer indoor concerts or theater, visit the Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance. This theater seats just over 1,500 people and is perfect for more intimate events, such as ballets or chamber music concerts.

 

Crown Fountain

Kids and adults alike love the innovative Crown Fountain.

Crown Fountain

The fountain, designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, consists of two 50-foot (15m) glass block towers at each end of a shallow, sparkling reflecting pool. The towers project video images of diverse Chicago citizens spitting out water, which Plensa claims is a reference to the traditional use of gargoyles, where faces of mythological beings were sculpted with open mouths to allow water to flow out

Lurie Garden

Outdoor enthusiasts will also enjoy the 2.5-acre (1 hectare) Lurie Garden. Hundreds of colorful flowers and green shrubs cover the garden. You'll find mostly native plants, a reference to the tall prairie grasses found in Illinois. A 15-foot-high (4.5 m) "shoulder"

Cloud Gate

hedge represents Carl Sandburg's famous description of Chicago as the "City of the Big Shoulders".

Cloud Gate

Architecture buffs will also enjoy the quirky Cloud Gate, designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. This bean-shaped structure was inspired by liquid mercury and is among the largest sculpture of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high (20 x 10 meter). It weighs a whopping 100 tons and is made of polished stainless steel plates.
The shiny material reflects the magnificent Chicago skyline. The 12-foot-high arch (3.7m) in the middle of the sculpture serves as a gate and welcomes visitors to walk under the structure, touch the steel, and view the distorted reflections of themselves and their

BP Footbridge

Complementing the Pritzker Pavilion in design, the magnificent 925-foot-long (282 meter)

BP Footbridge

winding BP Bridge - often referred to as the 'Snake Bridge' - is well worth a stroll. Connecting Millennium Park with Daley Bicentennial Plaza, the Frank Gehry-designed masterpiece provides great views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline.
Brushed stainless steel panels line the sides of the unique bridge and provide an acoustic barrier for traffic noise as it crosses busy Columbus Avenue.  The hardwood deck is easily maneuverable for visitors with disabilities.

More attractions

You’ll also want to make a stop at the classic Millennium Monument with its stately Doric columns rising 40 feet (12 meter) in the air. At the center of the monument is the Millennium Fountain.
Winters take visitors to the McCormick Tribune Plaza and Ice Rink,

Millennium Monument

boasting state-of-the-art ice-making machines that can even withstand unusually warm winter weather.

You can also enjoy changing exhibits along the Chase Promenade and have a chance to view local art at the Boeing Galleries. The Exelon Pavilions house Millennium Park’s excellent visitor center, a great place to start your tour if you’re new to the park.

 

Las Pozas, Mexico

In the Sierra Madre Oriental's lush mountainous landscape, an eight hour drive south of the Texas border, lies hidden one of the most intriguing and least known artistic monuments of the 20th Century, Las Pozas. On the grounds of a former coffee plantation, beside a cascading mountain river that drops through nine bathing pools ("Las Pozas"), eccentric English millionaire Edward James spent 25 years from the early 1960's to his death in 1984 creating in reinforced concrete an extraordinary and unique garden of surrealist sculptures, some reaching as high as 30 meters and all inspired by the surrounding tropical vegetation.

          There was rejoicing recently among garden-lovers at the footage of this remarkable jungle garden which was shown as part of Monty Don's BBC television series Around the World in 80 Gardens. Here at last was firm evidence that the garden had not literally fallen down and been consumed by the jungle, as had been rumoured. In fact Las Pozas is in fine fettle, lovingly maintained by a dedicated team of gardeners. English eccentric and patron of surrealism Edward James built this place over 20 years starting in the Fifties - a labyrinth of outlandish buildings and structures can be discovered strewn across some 80 acres of jungle, which is always on the verge of overwhelming it. Las Pozas means "The Pools", and a series of waterfalls gurgles away beneath platforms and hair-raising walkways, suspended in the jungle canopy. 

Today the magic of Las Pozas can be experienced, from within as James himself intended, and across the road from the main garden entrance, is the only private portion of these gardens.

Recently restored as a private residence by international award-winning architect Christopher H. L. Owen, the aptly named Casa de Los Peristilos and two of James' more famous sculptures: Homage de Max Ernst and Casa de las Plantas, also restored by the owner/architect. 

Born to immense wealth and privilege in 1907, James led a life that imitated the surrealist art he loved and collected.

As a young man, he turned his back on the rigid aristocratic circles of Edwardian England to which he belonged, becoming a patron of numerous artists. Amongst them Dalí, Ernst, Magritte, Man Ray, Picasso and Stravinsky to name only a few.

Years later, in 1964, he abandoned the intellectual, social, and artistic circles of London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles for the jungles of Mexico.

In Xilitla he lived with his close friend Plutarco Gastelum, a Yaqui Indian, and his family. Plutarco would later become James' construction foreman at Las Pozas.

Over a 20-year period and at a cost exceeding 7 million dollars they built more than 36 surrealistic structures in reinforced concrete that are dispersed throughout this magnificent site.

During his entire life besides being a patron to many artists James also wrote and published poetry, and was a founder of the NY City Ballet, but it was in his design and building of Las Pozas that he finally fulfilled his dream in becoming a true artist.

Las pozas is indeed a fantasy, an outpouring of the creative mind of a person with resources to express himself without constraint.

James renders his visions in stone and concrete; the jungle responds with rioting vegetation.

Seven snakes represent the seven deadly sins; evil lurking in the undergrowth.  

Bromeliads smother old trees; concrete fantasies mimic plants, thrusting upward toward the light

A great flower blooms in a jungle clearing. Rows of curved arches resemble  remains of some long-decayed monster. Mute creatures lurk in dark pathways. A gothic structure futilely tries to impose some kind of order. A cataract, maybe 100 meters high, falls in the dim light. The gardens are large; they range over 60 mountainside acres. I spent an entire day shooting images, but I didn't have time to see it all. Some Xilitla residents regularly visit. One told me that after four years, she still makes new discoveries. Las Pozas has been described as surrealistic, and I suppose it is. I would call it primal. Here, art amplifies nature. Like Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Las Pozas reeks fecundity. Primitive, lustful things live in this ancient jungle.  Directly across the road are the principal gardens of Las Pozas which includes an excellent restaurant and gift store (Tienda). The restaurant is open from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm and offers a wide selection of delicious Huastecan and Mexican food. Many critics have claimed that the three sculptures (Casa de los Peristilos, Casa de la Plantas & Homage de Max Ernst) are the finest and most sophisticated of Edward James' work at "Las Pozas", and therefore this property, entirely secluded, and entirely private becomes the highlight of the Gardens.

Sisodia Rani Ka Bagh

Jaipur, India's celebrated Pink City and the erstwhile kingdom of the Rajputs find adequate mention in the annals of history. Apart from its glorious martial history, folklore and splendid epigraphic edifices the city is also renown for its natural beauty manifested in its gardens like the Sisodia Rani ka Bagh.

Sisodia Rani Ka Bagh is a beautiful garden, located at a distance of 10 kms from Jaipur, on Jaipur-Agra Highway. Sisodia Bagh gets a prime attraction in the charming city of Jaipur. The Garden appeals more to the beholder, since it stands as a symbol of love. In 1728, Sisodia Rani Garden was built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh, with an intention to gift the garden, to his Sisodia Queen from Udaipur. As the name suggests, the Garden was named after the queen, who was adorable to the King.

Sisodia Rani Garden served as a natural sanctum and a getaway for the Maharani of Jaipur. Here, the queen used to spend time in the lap of nature, away from the political machinations of the royal palace. The Garden houses fragrant shrubs and exquisite variety of plants, which exclaims the fact that it made a perfect sanctum for the lady of the royal household. For centuries, the garden offered a retreat to the crowned heads and royal ladies, but at present everybody can enjoy this exotic and refreshing garden.

The structure of the garden is imbibed from the Mughal style of Architecture, which makes it a well-designed garden. Sisodia Rani Garden appears to be designed on the theme of eternal lovers, Radha-Krishna. The garden appeals to the artistic and visual tastes of the spectator with its layered gardens, fascinating fountains, painted pavilions and galleries. The interesting frescos, depicting the exotic scenes of Radha-Krishna, enthrall the visitors for their divine appearance.

Sisodia Rani Ka Bagh captivates the people for its beautiful landscaping and ceaseless charm. Set amidst the desert land, the garden exhibits skill of a human hand and the beauty of nature. If you are planning a trip to Jaipur, don't miss this magnificent garden, which is truly a feast for the eyes. 

The picturesque rambling lawns abounding in lush foliage and colorful vibrancies of the seasonal blooms is replete with pretty fountains with ornate figurines, galleries, pavilions, sparkling pools gleaming like a mirage of quicksilver, beautifully trimmed flowerbeds and murals vividly narrating the legends surrounding Lord Krishna. The murals are truly appropriate to the garden's central theme since they mainly portray the love that blossomed between Lord Krishna and his true love, Radha.

Experts say that Sisodia Rani ka Bagh is one of the most attractive gardens of the Jaipur city. One can get mesmerized by its wonderful fountains and water channels that decorate the inside areas of Sisodia Rani ka Bagh . The walls of Sisodia Rani ka Bagh are decorated with stunning and multicolored murals of Lord Krishna. A multitude of green trees with blooming flowers enthrall the tourists to their hearts content. One can easily take rest under the shades of these trees. Simultaneously they can take pleasure in cool breeze that blow there. Plentiful pavilions are built inside the Sisodia Rani ka Bagh which people can pay visit as well. Thus this Sisodia Rani ka Bagh is enough for relaxing from the mundane life of the city. One can bask into the fun of walking past the soft green grass; and also the scent of flowers creates a daze to any nature lover. 

Way back in the 17th and 18th century, the elegantly laid multi-tiered garden was a popular summer retreat for the young maidens and royalty of Jaipur. The gurgling springs at Galta housing the revered shrines of Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva and Lord Hanuman is situated in its vicinity and enhance the garden's sanctity.

Sisodia Rani ka Bagh, located in southeast Jaipur is an idyllic green paradise, an oasis of quietude and a symbol of true love and thereby happens to be one of Jaipur's much coveted tourist spots.

Location:	On Jaipur-Agra Highway, 10 kms from Jaipur
Built by:	Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh
Built in:	1728
Highlights:	Murals of Radha-Krishna
How to reach:	One can easily reach Sisodia Rani Ka Bagh from Jaipur either by taking local Buses, Cars or Taxi