AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
PUBLIC SPACES
Crown Fountain, Chicago, USA
The Crown Fountain anchors one corner of Chicago's new Millennium Park. Here, two 50-foot glass towers are connected by a shallow reflecting pool. Each tower portrays the faces of Chicagoans and changes with random programmed sequences. When the video image purses its mouth, a fountain of water emerges. Grazing fixtures, mounted below a stainless steel grate at the base of the towers, illuminate the spout of water. The sequences also allow both colour-changing interior fixtures and the exterior fixtures to be on at the same time creating a gradient from white grazing to a coloured interior glow.
Jim Baney, Autumn Metzler & Brian Garthwaite: Schuler Shook, USA