It has been a hundred years since the American urban planner Daniel Burnham created his renowned Plan of Chicago, a massive civic blueprint that has shaped the way the city has grown into the magnificent collection of streetscapes, stunning lakefront spaces, and suburban forest preserves it is today. As part of a centennial celebration of Burnham's plan, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid has designed a surreal biomorphic "Burnham Pavilion" for Chicago's Millennium Park--the forward-looking home to a Frank Gehry bandshell and Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate--as a tribute to the urban visionary.

The banter has already begun about whether the so-called "pod," scheduled to remain up until the end of October, does justice to Burnham’s legacy. But in my opinion the relevance of Hadid’s installation has already been affirmed by the lively and opinionated discourse it has generated.

The skin of her sleek, curvilinear structure is defined by 7,000 aluminum ribs that were bent and welded together one-by-one. Stretched across these ridges are thousands of yards of individually-sewn strips of recyclable fabric, with room left in-between for narrow slits of skylights to add to the play of sunlight and shadow within the structure. Projected against this cloth interior is a video installation by British artist Thomas Gray that explores the transformation of the city over the last 100 years, and the modernizing idealism behind this process is underscored in the evening when the pod is bathed in a sci-fi glow of orange, purple, and green lights, You can either love it or hate it, but it is impossible to be indifferent to Hadid’s provocative and visionary contribution to the celebration of the Burnham plan.

Explaining her work, Hadid has said the form of the pavilion is inspired by the diagonal lines that pervade Burnham’s street grid, imagining the pavilion as an extension of one of these lines and echoing the line in the ribs and skylight slits throughout. But I believe that the real tribute to Burnham lies in the creative energy, daring expression, and futuristic vision that Hadid encapsulates. Without these types of artistic imaginations, and the ongoing commitment of Chicago to supporting diverse, forward-thinking works of architecture and design, we would not 100 years later be celebrating the success and continuing realization of Burnham’s plan.

Further Reading:

"The Z-Pod Has Landed, Delayed But Worth the Wait" [via the Chicago Tribune]

"A New Monument—For a Few Months" [via the Wall Street Journal]

"Visitors Weigh in on New Millennium Park Pavilion" [via the Chicago Tribune]

A computer model of Hadid's pavilion as seen from above. ; Via http://www.architecturelist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/zahahadidpavilionmilleniump.jpg