What will Navy Pier look like in the future?
By David Roeder Business Reporter January 31, 2012 11:54AM
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Updated: March 2, 2012 8:12AM
Five architectural and design teams have responded to Navy Pier’s call for proposals to revamp its public spaces and inject a new sense of fun into the state’s most popular tourist attraction.
The proposals emphasize landscaping and creating new points from which to access the water or view the lakefront and the skyline. One calls for creating a beach while another has a swimming pool.
There is a canoe launch, a tower in the lake that appears to have no function other than to be seen and to become an ice sculpture in the winter.
The ideas range from reasonable to fanciful, and most have little regard for the pier’s stated $85 million budget for public improvements. But officials encouraged the respondents to make no little plans, saying the teams would be evaluated on overall creativity rather than a commitment to any budget.
The public is invited to comment on the designs 6-8 p.m. Wednesday at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago. Starting Thursday, the designs will be on display at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 S. Michigan.
Plans inevitably will be downsized and redone in response to budgets, needs and criticism. But pier officials hope the visions being offered will prove they intend to follow through on pledges for a drastic, public-spirited makeover.
Steve Haemmerle, executive vice president of Navy Pier Inc., said he is confident “that the team we select to work with will contribute significantly to the transformation of the pier into a truly world-class public space.” A decision is expected by the end of February.
The competing teams are: AECOM/BIG; AEDAS/Davis Brody Bond/Martha Schwartz Partners; !melk/HOK/UrbanLab; James Corner Field Operations; and Xavier Vendrell Studio/Grimshaw Architects.
The proposals account for specific ideas that pier managers already have laid out, including expansions of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the Chicago Children’s Museum.
The improvements could figure in a celebration of the pier’s 100th birthday in 2016.
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