Oh wow, this proposed Eco-Bridge off Chicago’s lakeshore is just fantastic! One of Chicago’s true jewels is the lakefront. Yet, it seems that many people outside Chicago aren’t aware of how great our lakeshore is. Dude, the Chicago Ecobridge will certainly make the lakefront a stronger part of Chicago’s identity.
Blair Kamin gives an excellent review of the bridge in his Skyline blog. Here’s my notes from his review:
- Two miles long
- Connects Adler Planetarium to Wacker Drive (just south of the Chicago River)
- Wind turbines dotting along the bridge
- Observation tower at the peak (I wonder how tall it’s planned to be)
- Observation tower could possibly hold the Olympic flame (I get chills thinking about that!)
- $1 billion cost
- Part of Daniel Burnham’s plan
- You can walk and jog on it
- Built on permeable slag, so fish can live in it
- House 5,000 to 10,000 boats
- House the rowing competition for the Olympics
And the bridge is like one giant hug for Chicago. It looks as though the observation tower has big arms coming out hugging Chicago.
UPDATE: The architectural firm Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill has some more images on their site including this wind turbine:
i love it. i love it. i love it. I love Chicago. I love the Olympics. I love everything about this.
ROCK HOT! I LOVE IT!!!
I bet the folks at the Adler Planetarium especially love this.
This is the coolest thing I have seen in a really long time!
I added an image of the wind turbine to this post. They are uh… kinda weird.
If this gets built, we’ll truly be the WINDY CITY.
Hooray for wind power!
Not unlike St Peters Basilica in Rome, which are supposed to be the arms of the church bringing one in… http://www.dl.ket.org/humanities/arch/images/basilica_.jpg
ooo! nice example, astro!
ooooh. those wind turbines are fugly. Hopefully something better will come along.