MILLENNIUM PARK MUSIC PAVILION AND GREAT LAWN
Chicago, Illinois

Photo: Whit Preston

Located in Grant Park between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Avenue along the edge of Lake Michigan, the Millennium Park Music Pavilion and Great Lawn will be an open-air venue featuring performances by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, as well as jazz, blues, and other world music performances.
The Music Pavilion is proposed to be a highly sculptural design element which will be clad in stainless steel panels on the exterior and Douglas Fir on the interior. It will be visible from surrounding city streets and is intended to act as a focal point for the new Millennium Park. The Music Pavilion will feature a series of portable risers which will accommodate an orchestra of up to 120 musicians, and a choral terrace which will accommodate a choir of up to 150 members. Back stage areas will be shared with the adjacent Music and Dance Theater. Large glass doors will allow the Music Pavilion to be used during winter months for public functions including banquets, receptions, and lectures. A decorative lighting system will enhance the Music Pavilion with colored light washes and projections during evening performances.
Seating for the audience will be provided in two areas located on the Great Lawn. The main seating area will accommodate up to 4,000 people in fixed seats and will be located immediately adjacent to the Music Pavilion. Beyond the main seating area, a lawn area will accommodate up to an additional 6,000 people in a more informal environment.
Performance sound will be reinforced and enhanced by speaker clusters located in front of the Music Pavilion. In addition, a distributed reinforcement and enhancement sound system will be suspended from a trellis which will span the entire 600 foot length and 300 foot width of the Great Lawn. This sound system will give the audience a fuller sense of the onstage sound and will control the sound level in the surrounding neighborhood.
The trellis, in the shape of a flattened dome, will be constructed of curved steel pipes typically spaced 65 feet apart and clad in stainless steel panels. The trellis will be supported by cylindrical stainless steel piers.
A decorative lighting system will enhance the trellis during evening performances.
The Music Pavilion and Great Lawn will be located atop a three level underground parking structure. A busway and metro rail tracks which run adjacent to Grant Park will pass beneath the Music Pavilion and Great Lawn at the lowest level of the parking structure.
A pedestrian bridge spanning Columbus Avenue is proposed to link the Music Pavilion and Great Lawn to the eastern portion of Grant Park and the edge of Lake Michigan.