Every day in Chicago's Millennium Park thousands of people play with Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture. Better known as "The Chicago Bean", the Cloud Gate was inaugurated in 2006 and is the most popular sculptural work in Chicago, Illinois.
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| The fascinating Cloud Gate sculpture, Bean in Chicago IL |
Is it a drop of mercury, a giant bean, or an interplanetary object?
For some, the sculpture has the shape of a gigantic drop of liquid mercury, for others that of a bean, kidney bean or kidney bean.
But for a surprised walker, he may assume that he is in front of an object arrived from another planet and mysteriously deposited within the park.
A Bean with magical curves to contemplate and play
The Chicago Bean has a huge smoothly curved shiny surface that reflects the reality of its surroundings in such a particular way that it invites you to be contemplated.
Cloud Gate is an object with magical curves that has the ability to make us return to childhood, because in the blink of an eye it makes us enter the game of looking for ourselves among its reflections.
The Cloud Gate is such a popular sculpture among tourists that everyone enjoys the opportunity to take a selfie, using of course the unique reflections of this incredible object.
Cloud Gate or Chicago Bean, whatever you want to call it, is not just any object. It is a unique object, as a symbol of Chicago, as its best-known skyscrapers, and as sociable and friendly as those of us who live in this city.
A unique sculpture by Anish Kapoor
The Cloud Gate sculpture was designed by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor.
Anish Kapoor designed this sculpture with the idea of interpreting the surrounding reality through the use of curved mirrors and what he accomplished artistically is astonishing.
Cloud Gate is an object that allows us to look at what one wants to look at: the sky, the city, the skyscrapers of Chicago, or ourselves. At each step reality is different, at each moment of the day or night what it shows is different, the same in each season of the year.
6 Interesting facts about Cloud Gate
- Cloud Gate was designed by computer: Artist Anish Kapoor made a large number of computer models analyzing the shape, until he was satisfied.
- Its creator does not like to be called Bean: Anish Kapoor said that he disliked the nickname of The Chicago Bean or in English The Chicago Bean.
- Cloud Gate has a structure of 168 pieces welded together: The exterior of the sculpture is covered by 168 stainless steel pieces welded together and polished so carefully that they look like a single piece.
- The Chicago Bean is 13 meters high: The Cloud Gate sculpture is 66 feet (20 meters) long, 33 feet (10 meters) wide, and 42 feet high (13 meters).
- Cloud Gate weighs 100 Tons: The sculpture weighs around 100 tons.
- The Cloud Gate cost $ 23 million: The initial estimate for the sculpture was $ 6 million but ended up costing around $ 23 million.