Tower Tours

Your brave correspondent at Willis Tower "Skydeck Ledge", Chicago.
Trusting Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

There's recently been a lively discussion, shall we say, over the title of "tallest building in America", or "tallest building in the Western Hemisphere." That last description circumvents consideration of Taipei 101, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpar, or anything the Middle East can come up with: Burj Khalifa in Dubai has been the tallest building in the world since 2010 and stands at 2,722 ft to the tip of its spire.

The Guardian outlines the issues. Fox News announces the "winner". One World Trade Center, with its 408 ft steel spire, measures 1,776ft. It's a symbolic reference to the year of the US Declaration of Independence. The contention is over whether its steel attachment is an antenna or a spire. If the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat had decided that it's an antenna, One World Trade Center would be reduced to a mere 1,368ft building – smaller than the 1,451ft Willis Tower in Chicago. However, to the chagrin of Chicagoans, the Council decided that the attachment was a spire - an integral part of the building. The spikes on top of the Willis Tower, which, if 'counted', would make it even higher still, are officially 'antennas.' Although the Willis Tower folk are remaining dignified through this dispute - Willis's top floor, at 1,354ft, will always be higher than the One World Trade Center’s 1,268 ft - Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel was heard to mutter, of the One World Trade Center spire: "If it looks like an antenna, and acts like an antenna, then it's probably an antenna."

Or, as the recently updated Wiki entry puts it:
Upon completion, One World Trade Center in New York City surpassed Willis Tower through its structural and pinnacle heights, but not by roof, observation deck elevation or highest occupied floor.

View East from the 103rd floor of Willis Tower.

Willis Tower, Chicago (source)

Willis Tower  began life as Sears Tower, and is still often referred to by that former name, such is the iconic stature of the building. The name change to 'Willis' dates from 2009; the building was completed in 1973. Here's Wiki on the tower.

The Sears Tower observation deck, called the Skydeck, opened in 1974. It's located on the 103rd floor of the tower, and is 1,353 feet (412 m) high. Tourists who venture up can experience how the building sways on a windy day, and can see far over the plains of Illinois and across Lake Michigan to Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin (on a clear day). The Skydeck competes with the John Hancock Center's observation floor across town, which is 323 feet (98 m) lower [John Hancock is 100-storeys and 1,127-foot (344 m) tall]

In 2009 Willis Tower's owners installed retractable glass balconies, extending out approximately four feet over Wacker Drive from the 103rd floor. They call this "The Skydeck". The all-glass boxes allow visitors to look through the floor to the street 1,353 feet (412 m) below. The boxes can, we're assured, bear five short tons of weight (about 4.5 metric tons). As you can see from the pic above, I trusted them on this....


However, I did want the FULL story before I ventured out over Chicago from 103 floors up, and here's what the brochure told me:

Original Sears Tower architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) designed The Ledge so that the fully enclosed glass boxes retract into the building, allowing easy access for cleaning and maintenance.
Experts in international structural glass design, Halcrow Yolles, fully designed and detailed all the glass and steel components. Beginning with the architect's original concept, the engineers took the design one step further by eliminating all perimeter structural steel at the sides and along the floor of the glass enclosures and creating a near-invisible support system.
MTH Industries, the Chicago-based 120-year-old glass and architectural metal contractor that installed the Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, installed The Ledge’s 1,500 pound glass panels. Each box is comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit. The low-iron, clear glass is fully tempered for durability.

Looking north over Chicago from Willis Tower. The John Hanock Building is the black one in the centre.

The Skydeck.

One World Trade Center in New York City, the new "tallest building in America", has just opened for business. It will, I believe, have an observation deck for visitors but this is not yet operational. You can, however, rent an office there. New Yorkers, and all Americans, have been watching the building of the new tower with anticipation, and celebrated its completion this month. Here's a video of the workers installing the spire that enable the "Freedom Tower" to eclipse Willis:

One World Trade Center - "Freedom Tower", NYC
(source)

One World Trade Center facts:  1,787' Pinnacle / 1,373' Roof | 108 floors. The observation deck will be on the 100th to 102nd floors, once it opens.

Meanwhile, there are other options in New York City if you'd like to get a bird's eye view from a tall tower. The Empire State Building, completed in 1931 and standing 1,454' (443 m) high, has been welcoming visitors to its outdoor viewing platforms for many years. The observatory there is on the 86th floor. The Rockefeller Center is also well-known for its viewing platform called "The Top of The Rock", which is on top of the tallest building in the complex, the 1933 Art Deco skyscraper officially named the GE Building - 70 floors, 850' (259 m).

During construction, photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets took the famous photograph "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" on the 69th floor.

"Lunch atop a Skyscraper" 1930

On solid, er building, this time, On Top of The Rock. 70th floor.

Central Park in winter, from the 70th floor, Top of The Rock.

NYC from The Top of The Rock. The Empire State Building is centre left;
the new Freedom Tower is to its right, in the distance. You can even see lady Liberty from here.

The Rock at night.

The Rock is home to NBC, and the
famous 'Rainbow Room.'

Just so you're clear on the current state of play in "World's Tallest":

The new World Trade Center in NYC is now the fourth tallest building worldwide, behind Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 2,717 feet tall, Shanghai’s Shanghai Tower, at 2,074 feet tall, and the Makkah Royal Clock Tower in Mecca, which stands at 1,972 feet.

But it's all in how you measure these things, as Chicago has found out this month. Don't fret if you can't clim to be absolutely THE tallest - there's plenty more records you could list. Taipei 101 (101 stories above ground and 5 below), for example, is able to make these claims:

Upon its completion in 2004 Taipei 101 claimed the official records for:
Ground to highest architectural structure (spire): 508 m (1,667 ft). Previously held by the Petronas Towers 451.9 m (1,483 ft).
Ground to roof: 449.2 m (1,474 ft). Formerly held by the Willis Tower 442 m (1,450 ft).
Ground to highest occupied floor: 438 m (1,437 ft). Formerly held by the Willis Tower 412.4 m (1,353 ft).
Fastest ascending elevator speed: designed to be 1,010 meters per minute, which is 16.83 m/s (55.22 ft/s) (60.6 kilometres per hour (37.7 mph)).
Largest countdown clock: Displayed on New Year's Eve.
Tallest sundial. 

They're both, er, TALL.

America Windows

Detail, Marc Chagall's 'America Windows'.

Wandering through the wonderful Chicago Art Institute the other day, followed the corridors from the old wing (the ex-World's Congress Building from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893) to the spectacular piece of architecture that is the Modern Wing - opened in 2009 and Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning Italian architect Renzo Piano. I paused on my way, at the juncture where the two buildings meet, to admire a set of luminous blue stained glass windows. These were Marc Chagall's 'America Windows', purpose made for the Art Institute and recently reinstalled. They were new to me, though I've admired Chagall's stained glass in churches, such as Zurich's Grossmüster and Frauenkirsch. These windows int eh museum are lovely things, beautifully lit. I looked them up:

Marc Chagall’s America Windows were a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago created by the artist for their specific context. Long a favourite of visitors, the searingly blue light creates a powerful background for the moments and events that occur across the piece...Removed to protect the pieces during the construction of the Modern Wing, the pieces were extensively conserved, and a new context was required that could better protect the pieces from the effects of temperature and humidity.

The new location allowed implementation of integrated systems that carefully address every aspect of the conservation and presentation of the system. Vinci Hamp Architects coordinated a team of structural, M&E and fire safety engineers along with Lux Populi to integrate what is, perhaps, the most refined light box around. The studies included photometric studies to ensure evenness of the illumination without flattening out the perceived depth of the piece (observe how most stain glass windows in museums appear flat), optimum colour temperature and rendition to best reveal the tones and elements of the piece, elimination of edge effects, thermal moderation to prevent condensate or thermal cracking and numerous other aspects.
Marc Chagall. America Windows, 1977. A gift of Marc Chagall, City of Chicago, and the Auxiliary Board, commemorating the American bicentennial in memory of Mayor Richard J.Daley.

Here's a bio of Marc Chagall, who was born in Belarus (then the Russian Empire) in 1887.

Renzo Piano's Modern Wing of the Chicago Art Institute.

The White City

(source)

In 1893 the soot-blackened, hog-killing, rather foul and grimy -- but vibrant -- city of Chicago beat out New York and Washington DC to become the host city for the great World's Fair of that year, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition (commemorating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the North American continent). Even back then, Chicago was a hotbed of talented architects, a characteristic it kept through the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.

Flocking to the World's Fair, Chicago, 1893(source)

To produce this massive fair - and make sure that Chicago and the US of A kept up with, or preferably surpassed, the city of Paris (which had hosted the previous World's Fair) - a band of dedicated architects and rich (very rich) entrepreneurs got together. It was touch and go for a while, but they did it, and spectacularly. The resulting Fair Grounds, built to the south of the grimy city in the Jackson Park area, was comprised of mostly temporary buildings in grandiose neo-classical style. When time was running short, the decision was made to basically whitewash the lot of them. The result was very wonderful and very white. The Fair was dubbed "The White City".

The Rookery, Chicago

The lead architects on the project were Burnham & Root, though Root passed away before the Fair (he died of pneumonia early in the planning process). Their firm had nurtured several up and coming men who later became architectural 'names', including Louis Sullivan and a young Frank Lloyd Wright. The shape of the Fair was formed from the 'control room' on the top floor office of Burnham & Root in a landmark building they'd built in the Chicago Loop, on South La Salle Street not far from the Board of Trade Building, named The Rookery. Today you can visit that top floor office - at the soaring height of eleven stories, where Burnham & Root conferred with their fellow architects, and the famous landscape architect from New York, Olmsted, over plans and schemes. The group could see the Jackson Park area from the windows, if they looked.

THE office, of Burhman & Root, 11th floor, The Rookery, Chicago.

Visiting The Rookery is fascinating in itself. Take a guided tour and learn all about it:

The Rookery...was revolutionary in several respects. Its architecture was unique and much more ornate than had been seen to date in commercial buildings. The Rookery successfully implemented many new and breakthrough building technologies - including metal framing, elevators, fireproofing, electrical lighting, and plate glass - that established the commercial acceptance of the modern skyscraper. At 11 stories tall, The Rookery was one of the earliest examples of metal framing with masonry walls on such a large scale. Today, it is considered the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago. 

Moorish, Romanesque Commercial, Indian, Venetian, Arabian, Islamic, Byzantine: all these words have been used to describe the Rookery’s exterior motifs. Some critics said that the mix of styles lacked unity, but others felt that the repeating patterns were an interpretation of American culture, reflecting a spirit of conquest.

Frank Lloyd Wright's idea of an office building atrium.

FLW's decorative touches, Rookery atrium.

The oriel staircase, The Rookery

The building is probably still great to work in - it has a wonderful large atrium letting in light to interior offices. These were favoured in the early days, since it was better to look inwards than outwards onto the dark, stinky streets. The atrium was remodelled in 1905 by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright, who covered it in light marble and delicate art deco decorations.

The first Ferris Wheel (source)

But back to the Fair - people flocked to it, 27 million visitors in 6 months. "Sell the cookstove if necessary and come. You must see the fair." wrote author Hamlin Garland in a letter to his parents in 1893. And what did they flock to see? The grandiose white buildings, the landscaping of a previously marshy area, the artificial lake with an island and a steam boat. But above all the exhibits - examples of the latest technology in the Electricity Building and the Manufactures Hall. The whole fair was powered and lit by the new-fangled electricity -- not using coal and gas allowed The White City to stay white.

They also came to see new inventions, like Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. They came to see and ride the amazingly huge world's first Ferris Wheel (designed by a Kansas engineer named Ferris, expressly to out-do the Paris Fair's Eiffel Tower). And they came to see curiosities (including native peoples) from far-flung countries around the world which they'd be unlikely ever to visit, and to see animals and crafts, minerals and plants, that were strange and curious.

(source)

At Chicago's Field Museum.

You might pause to wonder what happened to all those stuffed wild animals, mineral specimens, fossils, jaw-bones, Indonesian gamalans, Japanese kimonos. Answer: many of them ended up forming the initial collection of Chicago's natural history museum, called The Field Museum (after business man and department store pioneer, Marshall Field, who donated the wherewithal). The Field Museum has rummaged in its basements and curated a fine exhibition (runs until September 2014) where once again you can marvel at the things that made the eyes of 1893 pop. I was particularly taken with the stuffed animals, in excellent condition even after 120 years in the basement. Many are the work of the man who became the Museum's own taxidermist, Carl Akeley. (Two of his elephants are on display in the Field's main hall).

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There's a great review of the Exhibition from the new York Times here, with pics of some of the exhibits. The Museum's display is enlivened by some rather intriguing animated postcards. Video artists have taken postcards from 1893 and added in some moving figures. It's just like being there. Sort of.

The White City is said to have inspired a whole movement focussed on urban planning:

The White City is largely credited for ushering in the City Beautiful movement and planting the seeds of modern city planning. The highly integrated design of the landscapes, promenades, and structures provided a vision of what is possible when planners, landscape architects, and architects work together on a comprehensive design scheme...Where the municipal art movement focused on beautifying one feature in a City, the City Beautiful movement began to make improvements on the scale of the district. The White City of the World's Columbian Exposition inspired the Merchant's Club of Chicago to commission Daniel Burnham to create the Plan of Chicago in 1909, which became the first modern comprehensive city plan in America. (from Wiki)

The Fair had more than 200 buildings, almost all of which were designed to be temporary. Their facades were made not of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fibre called staff, which was painted white, giving the buildings their "gleam". Architecture critics derided the structures as "decorated sheds". (Wiki) In any event, the whole lot burnt down in a big fire in July 1894, about six months after the fair closed. A couple of survivors, which were intended to be permanent, remain: the Palace of Fine Arts (original home of The Field, now Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry); and the World's Congress Building in Grant Park (now the Art Institute of Chicago).

And in the Art Institute you can find, if you look closely, a few more remnants of the original fair, including these panels from the Japanese Pavilion, restored and displayed in the oriental art section of the galleries:

Panels from the original Japanese pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair, Chicago.

Aqua, The Building

Aqua, The Building

Chicago is a city of extraordinary twentieth (and 21st) century architecture, from the earliest skyscrapers, through the ornate neo-classical, art nouveau and art deco confections of the 1920s and 1930; to the beautiful "less-is-more" International Style of Mies Van Der Rohe's elegant tall buildings; to what was, in the 1970s, the tallest building in the world, Sears Tower (now Willis Tower.)

But let's pause just for a moment and admire a particularly gorgeous skyscraper, 82 stories high, in downtown Chicago's Lakeshore East development: named 'Aqua' by its management, the tower is a mixed hotel and residential building. You can buy or rent an apartment there if you have the cash (this article discusses the prices in 2010).

Aqua was completed in 2009, and was designed by architect Jeanne Gang, principal and founder of Studio Gang Architects, and it's her first skyscraper project. Chicagoans get excited by the fact that the designer is a woman - Aqua is the largest project ever awarded to an American firm headed by a woman. For reasons which are not clear to me (perhaps they did the hard work of interpreting the design and overseeing construction), Loewenberg & Associates are the architects of record. It's won a few architecture prizes.

As you can see by the pictures, the most distinctive feature of the building is the undulating balconies, each different from its neighbour. They make the building facade look like it's flowing, as in water ('aqua' - geddit?) The architect said she was inspired by shelves of rock around Lake Michigan, and the waters of the lake; but the balconies also, it seems, have some practical purpose. They help shade the glass and "confuse" the wind, and are arranged specifically so that residents can have views of city landmarks unobscured by the surrounding structures.

It's a beautiful thing.

(source)

Lyric Opera in Chicago

Marrina Rebeka as Violetta in Chicago Lyric Opera's 'Traviata'.

A couple of opera firsts for me in Chicago: wearing a beanie to the opera (it was below freezing); and an opera house that provided an orderly cab queue after the performance (well done).

The company was the Chicago Lyric Opera,  the production was Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, with the excellent Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja singing Alfredo. Our Violetta - a demanding role for a lyric soprano, the classic ‘singing while she’s dying role', a tough one to pull off well - was a Latvian soprano, Marina Rebeka; and the baritone Germont was Quinn Kelsey, a product of the Chicago Opera’s young artists program.

My verdict? I thought Alfredo was smooth, easy, rich and nuanced. I thought Violetta was a huge effort, acting needs more work, a lovely voice but could be modulated a little more (read = loud); but it’s a tough role, and a bouquet for Miss Rebeka. I thought the Germont was well sung but not inspiring. [PS I heard later that Ms Rebeka was not well. If true, she deserves a second bouquet]. On a good night at a 'Traviata', the second act (where Germont and Violetta have their big confrontation) should have me in tears. This one didn’t quite achieve that, but was nevertheless enjoyable.

The rest of the cast all seemed to be from the company and to have come up through the young artists program. The singing was patchy (what I could hear - some were too faint); and the young singers, bless them, looked like they were playing dress ups in a high school show - not comfy in their 19th century outfits. I also thought the direction lacked a little. One’s principals shouldn’t be turning their backs to the audience, or putting their hands to their mouths quite so much (as Violetta did). This was a debut opera for a theatre director, and it showed a bit. The production, a co-production with Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera Company, was...ok. I think designers should be braver about putting something IN the era. It doesn’t need to be ‘time-less’ to be timeless, if you know what I mean.

Act One.

It was opening night. I see that the reviewer in the Chicago Tribune agrees with me:

It would be nice to be able to report that Lyric's new production of this melodious tearjerker, which opened Wednesday night at the Civic Opera House, got such special treatment. What we had instead was an uneven "Traviata," unobjectionable on musical, dramatic and scenic grounds, that failed to touch the heart in the way exceptional performances of Verdi's middle-period masterpiece can do.... 

A striking beauty blessed with a bright, ravishing timbre and top notes like laser beams, Rebeka had what it took to nail her big aria (with its restored second verse) and florid cabaletta in Act I. The rest of her performance disappointed. The emotionally buffeted Violetta of Act 2 and the dying Violetta of Act 3 needed more oomph in the middle and bottom registers and a keener sense of dramatic involvement in the characterization. Neither Violetta's noble act of self-sacrifice nor her farewell to earthly things, the aria "Addio del passato," really tugged at the requisite heartstrings... 

Not that the emotional punch of the Violetta-Germont confrontation in Act 2 was helped by Kelsey's somewhat growly, if voluminous sound and the condescending smugness and lack of sympathy with which Alfredo's father treated his son's lover... 

Thank goodness for Calleja, a handsome Alfredo whose easy outpouring of burnished tone and ardent manner were everything one looks for in the role of the naïve country boy who seeks true love in the fleshpots of the Parisian demimonde. Calleja is the main reason to catch this new "Traviata."

Act Three: drama in red.

The Chicago Sun-Times reviewer was also unimpressed, even criticising Italian conductor Massimo Zanetti (with whom I had no quibble). He complains about Ms Rebeka:  "after Violetta’s Act 1 half-hour mini-opera, the wan singer just does not have the voice for the next two highly demanding acts. She is even almost inaudible in the famed letter-reading introduction to the Act 3 signature, “Addio del passato..” and says of Mr Kelsey that he "fails to stake his claim on the elder Germont.." and "is generally hulking, skulking and one-dimensional in both his singing and in his acting."

It's nice to find the critics agreeing with me! However, it was an enjoyable if not great 'Traviata.' I have seen Calleja sing this role with Reneé Fleming as Violetta and Thomas Hampson as Germont, and that’s a very high bar.

Act Four: the death scene.

Check out the lavish production  and a little of Verdi's fabulous music, in this trailer:



The Chicago Civic Opera House is delightful - an Art Deco and Art Nouveau confection festooned with decorative touches. The seating seems to all have good sight lines (it's not a traditional horse-shoe with the usual sight-restricted side boxes). I had front row of the dress circle, which was an excellent view, though perhaps closer might have been better. It’s a large house.

Civic Opera House, Chicago
"a giant throne..."

It’s not Chicago's original opera house - that was built in 1885 but demolished after a number of fires in 1913.  The current building, the Chicago Civic Opera House, was built in 1929 (and restored in 1996), and is described on its website  as “one of Chicago's historic landmarks and among the world's most beautiful buildings...a hybrid of Art Nouveau and Art Deco designs”. Here’s a description of the Opera House (which is topped by offices) in rather purple prose:

The Civic Opera Building is a majestic limestone skyscraper with a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings. Shaped like a gigantic throne facing the Chicago River between Washington and Madison streets, it was completed after just 22 months of planning and construction. The auditorium and its backstage areas occupy approximately one-third of the total space of the building. The distinguishing feature on the Wacker Drive side of the Civic Opera Building is the colonnaded portico that runs the entire length of the building. 

At the south end, large bronze doors open onto the grand foyer of the Civic Opera House, whose gilt cornices glitter beneath the sparkling lights of Austrian crystal chandeliers and elaborately stenciled ceilings. The magnificent space features a floor and wainscoting of pink and gray Tennessee marble, and fluted Roman travertine columns and pilasters. The 40-foot-high columns are topped with carved capitals covered in gold leaf. ..An imposing grand double staircase leads to the mezzanine foyer, where there are thirty-one boxes. Above this box level are two more balconies, each with 800 seats. The Civic Opera House seats 3,563. 

That’s BIG.

Michael Black

In other news, the program informed me that the chorusmaster from Opera Australia, Michael Black, has decamped to Chicago to become concertmaster for the Lyric. That will be a loss to the Sydney company. In an article about Black, the program expressed surprise that Opera Australia produces about 500 performances a year, and that Australian public schools place so little importance on music. Yup. Apparently Black worked as 'interim chorusmaster' in Chicago in 2011, and is now back full time - they liked him.

As with so many great US opera companies, there’s an impressive list of donors and supporters. And an advertisement in the program headed: “Let’s Leave It All To Lyric!” Given the size and scope of Chicago Lyric Opera, and the fact that it has Reneé Fleming as its artistic advisor, I was a bit surprised to read a comment in an program article insisting that, in comparison to other US and European houses, “we can hold our head high, high, high. We’re every bit as fine as any of them.” Hmm...who would have thought that wonderful, brash, fabulous Chicago would have a bit of a  cringe complex?

Art Deco meets Art Nouveau in the Chicago Civic Opera House (source)

The Bean

'Cloudgate'

Anish Kapoor's wonderful sculpture in Millenium Park in Chicago must rank as one of the most successful pieces of monumental public art ever. It's hugely popular with everyone, and people who visit it love to interact with it. And as they are reflected in its shiny surface they become pat of the art work, just as the city skyline does when it too is reflected in the surface of 'The Bean', as it's generally known - though the artist is said to have considered this nickname "completely stupid". The correct title of the piece is 'Cloudgate'.

The 'omphalos', or 'navel' of the Bean

Here's the story and stats from Wikipedia:

Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States... Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its bean-like shape.
Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It is 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons).
Said to have been inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties.
The sculpture was selected during a design competition. After Kapoor's design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Eventually, a feasible method was found, but the sculpture's construction fell behind schedule. It was unveiled in an incomplete form during the Millennium Park grand opening celebration in 2004, before being concealed again while it was completed. Cloud Gate was formally dedicated on May 15, 2006, and has since gained considerable popularity, both domestically and internationally.

In the underside of the sculpture is the omphalos, an indentation whose mirrored surface provides multiple reflections of any subject situated beneath it. The apex of the omphalos is 27 feet (8.2 m) above the ground. The concave underside allows visitors to walk underneath to see the omphalos, and through its arch to the other side so that they view the entire structure. During the grand opening week in July 2004, press reports described the omphalos as the "spoon-like underbelly". 

Kapoor's contract states that the constructed piece should be expected to survive for 1,000 years. The lower 6 feet (1.8 m) of Cloud Gate is wiped down twice a day by hand, while the entire sculpture is cleaned twice a year with 40 U.S. gallons (33 imp gal; 150 L) of liquid detergent. The daily cleanings use a Windex-like solution, while the semi-annual cleanings use Tide. In addition to the scheduled cleanings, the work endures periodic vandalism, including a notable February 2009 incident during which two names were etched in letters about 1 inch (25 mm) tall on the northeast side of the curved sculpture. The graffiti was removed by the same firm that did the original polishing.