Courtesy of ZHA

Chicago, United States of America

2009 - 2009

Burnham Plan Centennial

Burnham Pavillion

A temporary pavilion designed and erected in Chicago’s Millennium Park as part of the Burnham Plan celebrations – reflecting the Chicago’s long tradition for embracing cutting edge architecture in an in intricate but fluid structure that incorporates hidden traces of Burnham and Bennett’s original 1909 plans to redevelop the city.

Photograph by Thomas Gray at The Gray Circle

Merging new formal concepts with the memory of bold historic urban planning

ZHA’ pavilion design for Chicago’s Burnham Plan Centennial celebrates the city’s ongoing tradition of bold plans and big dreams. The project encourages reinvention and improvement on an urban scale and welcomes the future with innovative ideas and technologies whilst referencing the original organizational systems of Burnham’s plan. Our design continues Chicago’s renowned tradition of cutting edge architecture and engineering, at the scale of a temporary pavilion.

 

The design merges new formal concepts with the memory of bold historic urban planning. Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham’s organizational systems and architectural representations create unexpected results. By using methods of overlaying, complexity is built up and inscribed in the structure.

Photograph by Roland Halbe

Photograph by Thomas Gray at The Gray Circle

An intensification of public life around and within the pavilion

The pavilion is composed of an intricate bent-aluminium structure, with each element shaped and welded in order to create its unique curvilinear form. Outer and inner fabric skins are wrapped tightly around the metal frame to create the fluid shape. The skins also serve as the screen for video installations to take place within the pavilion. ZHA’s pavilion also works within the larger framework of the Centennial celebrations’ commitment to deliberate the future of cities. The presence of the new structure triggers the visitor’s intellectual curiosity whilst an intensification of public life around and within the pavilion supports the idea of public discourse.

 

The pavilion was designed and built to maximize the recycling and re-use of the materials after its role in Millennium Park. It can be re-installed for future use at another site.

keyFacts

awards

people

credits