Celebrating Crown Fountain's 20th Anniversary

Photography: Steve Hall | Hedrich Blessing | Cesar Russ

July marks the 20th anniversary of the iconic interactive public space Crown Fountain, a highlight of Chicago’s Millennium Park. Realized through a collaboration of Spanish visual artist Jaume Plensa and Krueck Sexton Partners, Crown Fountain is celebrated for its ability to create a dynamic, accessible, and free, interactive public space that has become a cherished part of Chicago’s cultural landscape.

Completed in 2004, the project features two 50-foot glass block towers displaying the faces of Chicago residents on LED screens, integrated with cascading water that periodically sprouts from the portraits. In the latest Chicago Sun Times article, published this July, residents reflect on their portraits taken for Crown Fountain in “The faces in the fountain: Millennium Park's Crown Fountain still watching over Chicago after 20 years”.

“Of all the scenes that have played out since Millennium Park, this is the one that says the most: children race around the black granite reflecting pool of the Crown Fountain, waiting for the giant human faces projected onto twin glass-block towers to spit their jets of water.
[But at the Crown Fountain], the atmosphere is raucous, festive, and above all, interactive. It’s the difference between architecture as an object and architecture as an event."

Blair Kamin, Terror and Wonder – Architecture in a Tumultuous Age

Back to News