Crown Fountain

You now arrive in front of the famous Crown Fountain in Millennium Park.Created by the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa it was inaugurated in July 2004. The fountain is named after the Crown family, who donated 10 million dollars out of the 17 million needed for the construction of the project. The Goodman family, known for founding the Goodman Theater, was also among the generous donors. The entire funding for this piece of art comes solely from private donations. As you can see, it’s an interactive fountain. There’s a black granite water mirror placed between two 15-meter-high glass towers. The towers are covered with screens on which videos of a thousand faces of Chicago residents are projected. The artist often works with the idea of duality, which is well-presented here with two faces facing each other that seem to be conversing. Volunteers were chosen to represent the diversity of the city’s population, and the videos were made by students of the Art Institute of Chicago in what became an informal art mastery class. They used high-definition cameras because the footage was going to be projected onto screens much larger than movie screens. To give you an idea of the quality and cost of the equipment used, the cameras used were the same as the ones used to film the latest Star Wars movies. The images still had to be edited to simulate facial movements at the right time and to position the mouths correctly as the artwork follows the principle of gargoyles, spouting water from the characters’ mouths. Each face appears on the screens for 5 minutes, with a 40-second sequence played in slow motion. Then, for 15 seconds, the mouth grimaces. After that, for 30 seconds, the fountain appears to flow as if water were coming out of their mouths. Finally, the water stops flowing, and the face appears smiling for 15 seconds. Jaume Plensa wanted a fountain that would invite the viewer to interact, and he couldn’t have been more right. The place turns into a real water park for children on summer days! During heatwaves, the press even directs residents to head to the Crown Fountain. It uses 50,000 liters of water per hour, 97% of which are recycled in the system. Despite raising concerns at the beginning, the Crown Fountain quickly became a favorite spot for photographers, an essential meeting place, and a refreshing playground for children. It is now one of the city’s landmarks.