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Architects: Gehry Partners
- Year: 2004
- Photographs: Patrick Pyszka
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Manufacturers: SIMES
Text description provided by the architects. Located in Millennium Park between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive along the edge of Lake Michigan, Jay Pritzker Pavilion is an open-air venue featuring performances by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, as well as jazz, blues, and other world music performances.
The Pavilion is a highly sculptural design element clad in stainless steel panels. The stage area is clad in Douglas Fir. The Pavilion is visible from surrounding city streets and is intended to act as a focal point for Millennium Park. The Pavilion features a series of portable risers that will accommodate an orchestra of up to 120 musicians, and a choral terrace with space for a choir of up to 150 members. Back stage areas are shared with the adjacent Harris Theater for Music and Dance. Large glass doors allow the Pavilion to be used during winter months for public functions including banquets, receptions, and lectures. A decorative lighting system enhances the Pavilion with colored light washes and projections during evening performances.
Seating for the audience is provided in two areas. The main seating area accommodates up to 4,000 people in fixed seats and is located immediately adjacent to the Pavilion. Beyond the main seating area, a lawn area can seat up to an additional 7,000 people in a more informal environment.
Performance sound is reinforced and enhanced by speaker clusters located in front of the Pavilion. In addition, a distributed reinforcement and enhancement sound system is suspended from a trellis that spans the entire 600 foot length and 300 foot width of the lawn area. This sound system gives the audience a fuller sense of the onstage sound and controls the sound level in the surrounding neighborhood. The trellis, in the shape of a flattened dome, is constructed of curved steel pipes typically spaced 65 feet apart. The trellis is supported by cylindrical concrete pylons clad in stainless steel panels.
The Pavilion is located atop a three level underground parking structure. A busway and metro rail tracks which run adjacent to Millennium Park pass beneath the Pavilion at the lowest level of the parking structure.
The 960 foot BP Pedestrian Bridge (also designed by Gehry) sits adjacent to the Pavilion and spans Columbus Drive, linking to the eastern portion of Millennium Park to Maggie Daley Park and other elements to the east, such as the lakefront and underground parking garages.
