GRANT PARK

In the early days of Grant Park's construction, renowned architect Daniel Burnham envisioned the construction of federal buildings and museums on what was then a vast wasteland, created after the 1871 fire by the dumping of city rubble into Lake Michigan. Fearing a real estate development on the shores of the lake, a group of citizens strongly opposed it and succeeded in saving the park by passing a law in 1911 prohibiting any construction in Grant Park. Named after Ulysses Grant, the eighteenth president of the United States, Grant Park gradually became the place for summer festivals, walks along the lake..

In its southern part, the Museum Campus, are three of the most visited buildings in Chicago: the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium.

The Buckingham Fountain is the central attraction of Grant Park: located in the middle of the park, in a Beaux-Arts style garden, it can be seen from far away thanks to its high water jets and the crowd it attracts. It was created in 1927 by architect Edward H. Bennett, who implemented the famous "Chicago plan" designed by Burnham in 1909. Bennett drew his inspiration from the gardens of Versailles, and more specifically from the Latone basin. Every evening from May to mid-October, at the beginning of each hour, the fountain is the center of a sound and light show that should not be missed.

The Art Institute borders South Michigan Avenue north of Buckingham Fountain.

Millennium Park was dedicated in 2004. In keeping with the 1911 law, the original plans for the Millennium Park pavilion included an open stage buried in the ground, which would have gone unnoticed in the landscape. Subsequently, the project leaders had the idea of commissioning an elevated sculpture-like structure, which would no longer be considered a building but an art object. The Pritzker family, a patron of the project, chose Frank Gehry to design what is now the Pritzker Pavilion. The Harris Theater for Music and Dance, however, was buried to comply with the law: it is the only theater in the area where you have to go down one floor to reach the upper mezzanine.

Maggie Daley Park, the latest addition, opened in 2015. It is adjacent to and connected to Millennium Park by the BP Pedestrian Bridge, designed by architect Frank Ghery. The park features a garden, an ice rink that forms a quarter-mile long circuit, climbing walls, tennis courts, a large children's garden and picnic areas.