Reflections in a glass bean
Terry Baker
printed on Giclée Epson Semi-Gloss
The ‘bean’ of the title is the public sculpture designed by the British architect, Sir Anish Kapoor, set as the centrepiece of the AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park, Chicago. It was built between 2004 and 2006 and is made up of 168 highly polished stainless steel plates, seamlessly welded together. The building to the left with the diamond face is the Crane Communications Building, 150 North Michigan Avenue, designed by Sheldon Schlegman and completed in 1984. This building has been ‘destroyed’ twice in its short lifetime; once in ‘Transformers: The Dark of the Moon’,and again in the video game, ‘Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2’. It seems to have survived these ‘attacks’ pretty well unscathed! Squeezed between these two buildings the very top of the Trump Tower is gamely poking out for some attention, while skyscrapers from an earlier epoch are reflected in Sir Anish’s glass ‘bean.’ Quite an architectural jamboree!
