Art Institute Of Chicago Essay

For someone to understand a building fully, one must begin with the history in which it was derived from. The Art Institute of Chicago was initially located in Grant Park for more than
100 years. One will find very interesting that much if not all the land in which the museum sits upon has been man made over time. The Art Institute's building located on Michigan Avenue was developed on land that was once turned to rubble due to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
During the 1890's more parks were being created east of an existing railway track that ran behind the museums building built in 1893, however the property was soon littered with stables, squatters' shacks, garbage, and debris .1 Chicago based architect Daniel Burnham was assigned the task
B., Goldberger, P., Warchol, P.. . Warchol, P. (2009).
The modern wing: Renzo piano and the art institute of chicago(1st ed.). Chicago;New Haven;: Art
Institute of Chicago. recreational development of the lakefront with a series of parks and ponds expanding from
Jackson Park on the south side to Wilmette, beyond Chicago to the north.2
The main central point of Burnham's plan was his idea of Grant Park. Daniel Burnham believed this to be the cultural hub of the city, Including strategically laid out buildings such as the Field Museum in the middle, the Chicago public library to be placed to the south, and the
Art Institute developed on the north side. However Burnham's Center City park plan would not be developed in part because of successful lawsuits filed by Montgomery Ward. These lawsuits requested the removal of structures in the park and denied access of the construction of new buildings above grade. There were some exceptions though, The Art Institute which began construction of the Michigan Avenue building in 1891. Also the Chicago Public Library began its construction in 1891 and the Field Museum also opened in 1921.
The park was nearly completed in the 1920's but for only a few parcels of land north
The space also contains Piano's typical style of visible structure with modern detail.
With this design Piano uses a cable post-and-tie system below the main roof. He uses the cables to form an unusual pattern that helps define the space. Using this structure and skin pattern
Piano is able to make spaces that are light, energetic, and peaceful all at the same time.
Visitors are then able to move up suspended stairs to the courts second floor mezzanine and into the east pavilion of the wing, where the painting and sculpture galleries are located.
The galleries for painting and sculpture are more discreet than the Griffin Court, but the details within remain equivalent. Every floor has rooms within that span lengthwise around 125 feet.
The north end of every room is completely covered with glass. From these windows one gets a view of Millennium Park and the skyline.
The gallery rooms were designed to be subdivided, so Piano created a partition system to create this effect. The reason behind doing this, is to give off the sense of continuity of each room but also to promote an enclosure within the separate galleries. One might claim there is a loss feeling of the expanse space, but the system indeed allows the rooms to break up