Riverwalk Architecture Walk

Welcome to Chicago! We're starting at Cloud Gate, the giant mirrored sculpture that just about everyone calls the Bean. It's by the artist Anish Kapoor, who was inspired by liquid mercury. The surface is made of 168 stainless steel plates welded together and polished so smoothly that you can't see a single seam.

It's about 33 feet high and 66 feet long, and weighs around 110 tons. Take a minute to walk all the way around it and then underneath the arch. Look up into the curved hollow in the middle, called the omphalos, meaning navel. It bends and multiplies your reflection in wild ways.

Building it wasn't easy. Some experts doubted the design could be built at all. It was shown unfinished at the park's grand opening in 2004, then hidden again while the work was completed, and formally dedicated in May 2006. Step back and watch the skyline and the clouds slide across it.

That's the point.

This is the Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897. It was built as the city's main public library and as a memorial hall for the Grand Army of the Republic, the organization of Union Civil War veterans, which donated the land. In 1978 the library moved out and the building became a cultural center, and it describes itself as the nation's first free municipal cultural center. The city uses it as its official reception venue for visiting dignitaries.

If the doors are open, step inside. The real treasure is Preston Bradley Hall, with curving white marble walls under a 38-foot Tiffany glass dome designed by J. A. Holzer.

The Cultural Center says it's the largest Tiffany dome in the world. The city says this dome was restored in 2008. A second glass dome, in the Grand Army of the Republic rooms, was restored in 2021 and 2022. There's no charge to go in, so if you have a few minutes, it's well worth it.