The Best Outdoor Art Destinations in Chicago

Image via Complex Original

The Acqua Tower is a wavy, weird, and unmissable addition to the famous Chicago skyline. A mostly residential skyscraper standing at eighty-two stories, the Acqua holds the distinction of being the largest American architecture project ever designed by a woman. Pushing for as much eco-friendliness as is possible in a skyscraper, Jeanne Gang and her team sought to make sustainability a major priority by utilizing unusual terrace extensions for solar shading, installing rainwater collection systems, and making the green roof on top of the tower base the largest in Chicago. To get a really close look visitors can book a room at the Radisson Blue Acqua, a four-and-a-half star hotel with a glamorous outdoor pool.

Another Studio Gang project, the Wood Pavilion in Lincoln Park Zoo is a marvel of engineering intersecting with natural beauty. Consisting of a latticed wooden arch with a fiberglass-domed roof, the Pavilion harmoniously co-exists with its bucolic environment, “transforming a picturesque urban pond from the 19th century into an ecological habitat buzzing with life,” as Dezeen put it. The sheltered spot serves as a meeting place for open-air classes like yoga or ecological lessons for kids, and is a gorgeous and popular attraction to visitors of Lincoln Park. It is especially worth visiting at night, when the structure is softly illuminated from within.

Alexandre Calder’s whimsically named Flamingo sculpture is a bright respite in the somewhat harsh urban environment of Federal Plaza. Painted with an organic vermillion, set off against the somber modernism of Mies van der Rohe’s nearby Kluczynski Building, the Flamingo has been greeting downtown office workers and visitors since 1974. Calder might be considered a fairly popular choice for public art nowadays, but few installations have the longevity, scale, and satisfying contrast that Flamingo offers. Next time you’re at Federal Plaza, stroll under its enormous arches, and contemplate what this dynamic sculpture brings to its surroundings.

What list of outdoor art in Chicago would be complete without mention of Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate? Affectionately nicknamed “The Bean” (for obvious, bean-shaped reasons), this sculpture remains awe-inspiring even after the first couple times you see it. With a liquid mirror-like surface that reflects and distorts the city skyline, one wonders how its construction was ever possible. And indeed, Cloud Gate’s fabrication process was plagued with problems and was deemed by many experts to be impossible. Eventually a method was found, and today Chicago is unimaginable without it. “I hope what I have done is make a serious work,” Kapoor has mused. “You can capture the popular imagination and hold other points of interest, but that is not what I set out to do, although there is inevitably a certain spectacular in an object like this.” As an object, “The Bean” could not be more spectacular.

Among the many marvelous installations in Millennium Park, Crown Fountain ranks among the best. It consists of a black granite reflecting pool and two opposing 50-foot-tall towers fronted by LED screens, displaying digital videos of different Chicago residents’ faces. Weather permitting, these faces pucker and a fountain of water intermittently spouts out of their giant lips. A playful piece of contemporary art that is a favorite of children, the Crown Fountain is especially enjoyable on a hot summer day when many visitors frolic in the pool and happily get doused by the surreal spitting faces.

Legend has it that an architect working on the Daley Center wrote Picasso an earnest poem to invite him to contribute a sculpture to the plaza. Refusing payment, Picasso generously complied and offered his untitled sculpture of a head as a gift to the city of Chicago in 1967. Of course, not everyone appreciated the gift, since up until that point public sculpture in the city consisted of conservative (and usually fairly boring) historical figures. This Picasso was anything but. There was an immediate outcry to have it removed and over the years it has been unfavorably compared to a baboon, an aardvark, and a slumlord. But the city stuck to its guns and thus the Picasso kicked off Chicago’s rich history of daring public sculpture.

Chicago’s architecture is justifiably world-famous, and the Charnley-Persky House embodies a unique slice of its history. Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor Louis Sullivan invited the young Wright to work on the project when he was still a junior draughtsman, and it was completed in time for the World’s Fair in 1893. Though perhaps modest in scale by today’s standards, the house demonstrates the beginning of the shift away from decorative Victorian toward a clean, linear style, and to this day it stands out in the neighborhood as an oddity. The building houses the Architectural Historians headquarters and is a museum, offering free docent-led tours every Wednesday.

The Michigan Avenue Bridge is worth crossing on foot, offering spectacular views of the river and surrounding cityscape in a historical district. Completed in 1902 and adorned in 1928, both sides of the bridge are bedecked with sculptural friezes by American artist James E. Fraser, perhaps best known for public monuments in Washington, D.C. The Michigan Avenue Bridge friezes depict a narrative history of Chicago starting with “The Discoverers” from Europe who explored the Mississippi River, and ending with “Regeneration,” the rebuilding after the devastating Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Originally built as a drawbridge to allow water traffic down the Chicago River, today you can catch the Michigan Avenue Bridge in its upright position twice weekly in spring and autumn.

Visitors making the trek to Northerly Island are welcomed by three sculptures of lovely ladies with wings for arms and plants for hair, seeming to twist and dance across the grass. Artist Dessa Kirk actually built the trio out of the wielded automobile parts of scrapped cars, embedding a wry commentary on materialism and self-destruction into these otherwise elegant figures. First temporarily located in Grant Park, this piece was so beloved that it was given a permanent home on the island in 2006. A perfect place for quiet contemplation outside of the city, go and visit Daphne Garden for a break from the exhausting rest of Chicago.

One of the rare public art installations made by a painter, the mural by Marc Chagall located in the Loop District is probably one of the city’s most colorful and cheerful pieces of art. Composed of thousands of mosaic tiles in more than 250 distinct colors, The Four Seasons depicts many of the artist’s signature dreamy symbols, including birds, fish, flowers, and pairs of lovers. Restored in 1994 and protected by a semi-translucent canopy, the mosaic is dazzling on a sunny day. A popular picnic spot for office workers on their lunch break, The Four Seasons makes Chase Tower Plaza the perfect spot to pack a meal and spend some time enjoying the outdoors with your fellow city dwellers.