Crown Fountain at Millenium Park
Another feature of Chicago's new Millenium (plus 4) Park, is a wacky but fun thing called The Crown Fountain. At least in the hot weather, kids love this thing. I walked over at lunch time today, and there were hordes of children in their swimsuits playing in this thing.
Visualize two tall rectangular glass-block towers, with a fair spread of space between them, say 35 yards. Now, imagine yourself standing between them, and that each tower has a giant close-up movie shot of a face, made quite bright by some kind of LED technology. A face stays up for about 15 minutes, then they switch to a new face, and apparently they have hundreds of faces they rotate throught. Now, imagine that water is pouring off the top of the towers, and that the place you are standing is actually a shallow pool of water. Finally, imagine that periodically a big jet of water comes right out of the movie-mouths.
I know, hard to visualize, sounds insane. But kids like it, so I will forgive a lot. I have a pro-kid bias, obviously, because when I saw it on a chilly day, with no kids, I thought it was kind of dumb.
Here's an article which discusses the LED's:
http://www.plsn.com/cgi/news/viewnews.cgi?id=1080002363
Here's a photo of a face spouting water:
http://zulkey.buzznet.com/user/?id=384923
Here's a model of the layout:
http://www.richardgraygallery.com/pdf/jplensa_News1RevFinal.pdf
Rhyme of the day:
I love to see kids having fun
Splashing and dashing through water and sun
Visualize two tall rectangular glass-block towers, with a fair spread of space between them, say 35 yards. Now, imagine yourself standing between them, and that each tower has a giant close-up movie shot of a face, made quite bright by some kind of LED technology. A face stays up for about 15 minutes, then they switch to a new face, and apparently they have hundreds of faces they rotate throught. Now, imagine that water is pouring off the top of the towers, and that the place you are standing is actually a shallow pool of water. Finally, imagine that periodically a big jet of water comes right out of the movie-mouths.
I know, hard to visualize, sounds insane. But kids like it, so I will forgive a lot. I have a pro-kid bias, obviously, because when I saw it on a chilly day, with no kids, I thought it was kind of dumb.
Here's an article which discusses the LED's:
http://www.plsn.com/cgi/news/viewnews.cgi?id=1080002363
Here's a photo of a face spouting water:
http://zulkey.buzznet.com/user/?id=384923
Here's a model of the layout:
http://www.richardgraygallery.com/pdf/jplensa_News1RevFinal.pdf
Rhyme of the day:
I love to see kids having fun
Splashing and dashing through water and sun