A "Chicago in Stone and Clay" Companion, Part BE-A: Contemplating the Bean's Deeper Implications at Sunset | Cloud Gate (2004), Millennium Park
This series complements my award-winning guidebook, Chicago in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Windy City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it CSC.
While this art installation isn't specifically covered in CSC, I thought I'd include it here anyway.
It's officially dubbed "Cloud Gate," but Chicagoans have nicknamed it "The Bean" (see my other photo of it in this album to see why). This 2004 sculpture by Anish Kapoor has a seamless stainless-steel exterior that attracts tourists and other park visitors like wasps to a picnic jampot. Note how the upper half of the reflected image of the Aon Center (formerly the Amoco/Standard Oil Building) has a roseate glow from the last rays of the setting Sun.
Stainless steel is, in its own way, as geologically derived a material as stone or fired clay. Its base element, iron, is nowadays mostly extracted from Precambrian Banded Iron Formation deposits containing magnetite and hematite. But unlike normal, corroding steel, the stainless variety is an alloy not of iron and carbon, but of iron and chromium extracted from the ore chromite. Nickel and molybdenum are sometimes also added.
For more on the Windy City's architectural geology, get and read Chicago in Stone and Clay, described at its Cornell University Press webpage.
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Chicago in Stone and Clay" Companion album. In addition, you'll find other relevant images and descriptions in my Architectural Geology: Chicago album.
A "Chicago in Stone and Clay" Companion, Part BE-A: Contemplating the Bean's Deeper Implications at Sunset | Cloud Gate (2004), Millennium Park
This series complements my award-winning guidebook, Chicago in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Windy City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it CSC.
While this art installation isn't specifically covered in CSC, I thought I'd include it here anyway.
It's officially dubbed "Cloud Gate," but Chicagoans have nicknamed it "The Bean" (see my other photo of it in this album to see why). This 2004 sculpture by Anish Kapoor has a seamless stainless-steel exterior that attracts tourists and other park visitors like wasps to a picnic jampot. Note how the upper half of the reflected image of the Aon Center (formerly the Amoco/Standard Oil Building) has a roseate glow from the last rays of the setting Sun.
Stainless steel is, in its own way, as geologically derived a material as stone or fired clay. Its base element, iron, is nowadays mostly extracted from Precambrian Banded Iron Formation deposits containing magnetite and hematite. But unlike normal, corroding steel, the stainless variety is an alloy not of iron and carbon, but of iron and chromium extracted from the ore chromite. Nickel and molybdenum are sometimes also added.
For more on the Windy City's architectural geology, get and read Chicago in Stone and Clay, described at its Cornell University Press webpage.
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Chicago in Stone and Clay" Companion album. In addition, you'll find other relevant images and descriptions in my Architectural Geology: Chicago album.