Chicago’s Millennium Park celebrates fabric

Civic pride partners with art, architecture and landscape design in Chicago’s Millennium Park, a 24.5-acre public space featuring world-famous designs and designers. Zaha Hadid, the only woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize in architecture, joins their ranks with her temporary pavilion design for a June 19 centennial celebration of park planning in Chicago.

Zaha Hadid Architects, London, England, developed a fluid shape with an aluminum framework, elastic silver-grey tent fabric and skylights illuminating the interior space. Inside the temporary structure, visitors will view a multimedia presentation on Chicago’s park planning, beginning with the Burnham Plan in 1909 and showing the windy city’s progress in establishing visionary public spaces. Hadid’s pavilion can be taken down and re-installed elsewhere, giving it added functionality and visibility. The privately funded $500,000 project received in-kind support from businesses with Chicago connections, including aluminum from Marmon/Keystone Corp., Butler, Pa. TenFab Designs LLC, Evanston, Ill., provided tensioned fabric design and engineering for the Hadid installation. For more information about the structure, visit www.zaha-hadid.com.