Millennium Park - Reception and Recognition

Reception and Recognition

The Financial Times describes Millennium Park as "an extraordinary public park that is set to create new iconic images of the city", and further notes that it is "a genuinely 21st-century interactive park could trigger a new way of thinking about public outdoor spaces". Time magazine views both Cloud Gate and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion as part of a well-planned visit to Chicago. Frommer's lists exploring Millennium Park as one of the four best free things to do in the city, and it commends the park for its various artistic offerings. Lonely Planet recommends an hour-long stroll to see the park's playful art. The park is praised as a "showcase of art and urban design" by the San Francisco Chronicle, while Time refers to it as an "artfully re-arranged civic phantasmagoria like Antonio Gaudi's Park Güell in Barcelona, with the difference that this one is the product of an ensemble of creative spirits". The book 1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die describes Millennium Park as a renowned attraction.

"This is not simply a background park, where a series of individual objects exist in a field. The objects here have become the field. It is densely packed like the city itself. This is a different idea of an exterior experience than in most parks. It is closer to a theme park or a shopping mall."

—Richard Solomon, Director of Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

The park was designed to be accessible; it only needs a single wheelchair lift and its accessibility won its project director the 2005 Barrier-Free America Award. The McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion both provide accessible restrooms. The park opened with 78 women's toilet fixtures and 45 for men, with heated facilities on the east side of the Pritzker Pavilion. It also had about six dozen park benches designed by Kathryn Gustafson, the landscape architect responsible for the Lurie Garden. In 2005, the park won the Green Roof Award of Excellence in the Intensive Industrial/Commercial category from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC). GRHC considers the park to be one of the largest green roofs in the world; it covers "a structural deck supported by two reinforced concrete cast-in-place garages and steel structures that span over the remaining railroad tracks". In 2005 the park also received Travel + Leisure's Design Award for "Best Public Space", and the American Public Works Association's "Project of the Year" Award. In its first year, the park, its features and associated people received over 30 awards.

Some mayors from other cities have admired the park as an example of successful urban planning. The mayor of Shanghai enjoyed his visit to the park, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wished his city could create a similar type of civic amenity. Closer to home, Blair Kamin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, concluded his 2004 review of Millennium Park with the following: "...a park provides a respite from the city, yet it also reflects the city. In that sense, all of Millennium Park mirrors the rebirth of Chicago ... the ambition of its patrons, the creativity of its artists and architects, and the ongoing miracle of its ability to transform a no place into a someplace that's extraordinary."