This project is tantamount to putting pink flamingo out in the front lawn of your house.

You're house will seem better than the neighbors' houses...but would want to come back to the neighborhood?

There seems to be a lot of talent and energy marshaled brought to make bold moves on how we experience the lakefront, that is, if you happen to live @ Navy Pier.

It’s a lot of visual belch that rips-roars-a-plenty but amounts to nothing.

If the folk of Chicago are happy as clams to cherry pick and dilute any of these pipe dreams and build them, it will make little improvement for the city. In 20 some years or less, we'll be having this same conversation. It will probably make some money in its time before this talk. The fanfare will subside and will look to affix something new…and then you’ll have to consider ponying up more for a bigger and better plastic flamingo.

Yes. Go ahead, put a bird on it.

I’m sure the Architecture seems competent but I think the issue is more systemic than putting up more pretty. Architecture serves people first...the egos are incidental to all of this. If the Architecture is exemplary, everyone wins…but not tomorrow if any of these works gets realized.

If this is part of a broader vision of what a 21st Chicago could be, what is then? And how does this tell people about Chicago's vast culture tapestry, tastes and sounds? Will it be memorable? How can identify this project with Chicago asides from saying that I bought something there which I can get online?

Millennium Park seems successful because it stitches pieces of Michigan Ave and the Art Institute closer. It reinforces the city. People can walk to it. It is visually present once you migrate away from the glass and steel world. LSD is a visual barrier that cuts off any relation to Navy Pier.

Millennium Park occurs before LSD.

Burrow underneath LSD and you will be rewarded with this supposed wonderful-something. Is that the idea?

Tunneling is for rodents, shovels are for digging holes and winter mornings.

These proposals are still a bad idea.

If you go up 90 miles north, you’ll notice that Milwaukee has done something similar. They revived their lakefront with big gestures; a flappy-winged art museum, another museum with a boat and still let their folk party it up like shirtless drunken trolls under a highway bridge; only the beer and bands make it seem a little better…but not by much. Take that away and all you have left is gambling and heckling Brewers’ fans.

Chicago deserves something nice. It deserves something that we can all relate to and celebrate and a much better reason to get people of theirs arses and come out to Navy Pier.

Chicago, you can do better. Plan better; dream bigger. Save up for that dream if you have to…avoid this impulse purchase!

Where is the big idea here?

I had a much more visceral reaction to this story which I'll save for the locker room or pub.

It seems hover around this singular purpose that is Navy Pier which is obvious and that is why it is problematic. The works seem inspiring but it does not reinforce the city. Millennium Park seems successful because it stitches pieces of the loop and Michagan Ave and the Art Institute closer. It reinforces the city and makes it a more memorable place that fosters all sorts of activities asides being another mechanism for commerce.

The goals for this project needs to be revisited. I'm willing to wager that once Lake Shore Drive is reconsidered, bringing people out there might be easier than coming up with louder, brighter Architectural gesture. Putting a bird on it helps no one in the long view as this conversation will likely happen it's time for Navy Pier III.

Chicago needs to dream a little bigger, Architects and designers need to stretch that creativity a lot further. Don't we deserve that?

Check out two short videos by the Chicago Cultural Creatives Alliance. It offers compelling concepts born from local passion and desires and not the disconnected, design statement view of out-of-town landscape & design firms who are currently on exhibit.

PART ONE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfz8InfC0_o

PART TWO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whufb_Ge5zA

I was really impressed by a good alternative, Chicago Cultural Creatives Alliance which actually appeared to more put more thought into the project than all the big names together. surprising what is in your own back yard.

I was really impressed by a good alternative, Chicago Cultural Creatives Alliance which actually appeared to more put more thought into the project than all the big names together. surprising what is in your own back yard.