BEST PUBLIC SPACE
January 2005

It may have run four years late, but it was worth the wait. Millennium Park on Chicago's Lake Shore is the most exciting public space we've seen since the Parc Citro? in Paris.

Sited next to the Art Institute of Chicago, and framed by the elegant Aon Center, the park is dominated by the Jay Pritzker Pavilion (named after the late Chicago businessman of architecture prize fame). This 40m-high bandstand with its steel 'ribbon' roof ? instantly recognisable as the work of Frank Gehry ? can seat 4,000 people, and there's space for another 7,000 on the lawn under a web of metal arches, which forms an open-air 'acoustical canopy'. Adjacent is the only Gehry bridge in the world, the elegantly curving BP Bridge, which is intended to muffle traffic noise.

Another landmark is the gleaming aluminium Cloud Gate sculpture by British artist Anish Kapoor. Inspired by drops of mercury, its polished curves give a wonderfully distorted reflection of the skyline and the delighted faces of the children who use it as a hall of mirrors. 'I wanted to engage the Chicago skyline,' says Kapoor. 'So that one will see the clouds kind of floating in.'

Elsewhere is the Crown Fountain (pictured) by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. This comprises two 15m-high glass blocks, set in 3mm of water, with digital screens displaying the images of local Chicagoans. Every 13 minutes the face changes and periodically it spouts water, like a modern-day gargoyle.

Of course, greenery has a place here too, most notably in the 2.5-acre Lurie Garden, the work of Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel, with 5m-high hedges, cherry trees and more than 200 other varieties of plants. A water feature bisects the garden, separating it into a sunny 'light plate' and a shady 'dark plate'. It's fitting that a city that once pushed so spectacularly skywards should now do great things at ground level.