The Art Institute of Chicago South Garden
Located on the south side of the Art Institute of Chicago along Michigan Avenue, The Art Institute of Chicago South Garden is one of the Best tourist destinations in Chicago. It is as peaceful as it is beautiful and includes an open courtyard with symmetrically placed trees surrounding it. The garden has a fantastically soothing ambiance, no matter what the weather may be.
The Chicago Art Institute has two modern gardens. The Institute itself, built in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, is Beaux-Arts. The South Garden, built in 1962 was designed by the master landscape architect Dan Kiley and is perhaps his most important public project. It has a pattern of silver granite planters, with hawthorns, in orange gravel. The North Garden was designed, as a sculpture court, by the landscape architect Laurie Olin.
This intimately scaled garden, built atop a parking garage on the south side of the Art Institute of Chicago, opens onto Michigan Avenue. Designed and constructed between 1962 and 1967, the garden is one of Dan Kiley’s best-preserved commissions from the period. The design is simple in composition and material. Moving inward from the avenue, two generous raised beds are planted with three staggered rows of honey locust trees that shade privet, ground cover, and flowering bulbs.
The central plaza space is recessed 18” and is bisected by a rectangular pool that terminates at the Fountain of the Great Lakes, a sculptural fountain by Lorado Taft created in 1913. On either side of the pool raised planters containing a gridded bosque of cockspur hawthorn trees provide places to sit. Each planter is situated 20 feet in the center and is under-planted with ground cover and herbaceous plants for color in the summer months. The low branching of the trees creates a canopy over the entire plaza. Along the rear of the space, honey locust trees and flowering shrubs frame the Taft fountain.
DETAILED INFORMATION:
- Location: South Garden, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL, USA
- Website: https://www.tclf.org/landscapes/art-institute-chicago-south-garden
- Tel: 312 443 3600
- Hour: 11:00 AM - 17:00 PM
- Google Rating: 4.8/5
- Ticket Price: $14 to $25 per person
