Summer pavilion in Millennium Park, Chicago © MAS Studio / Andrew Obendorf
Early this year, we were commissioned to design a summer pavilion in Millennium Park as part of the exhibition Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good that was exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Our project was scheduled to be installed by Memorial Day weekend to kick off the summer events in the park. Unfortunately, it wasn’t installed then and, in the end, it wasn’t installed at all. As it happens with many projects, the development of the pavilion went through several challenging phases in order to address the requirements and requests from the different parties involved. We were able to overcome the challenges found throughout the process and the budget required to install it was secured, but the project stalled during the contract negotiations between the City of Chicago and the contractor. After several weeks of negotiations, they could not reach an agreement and, despite some final efforts, it was not possible to find alternatives to install it.
Having been already built off-site at the contractor’s shop and ready for installation (which would have taken 1-2 days), it was really unfortunate that the pavilion could not become a reality in Millennium Park. We were really excited about this project and the activities that it was going to host for residents and tourists throughout the summer, but it was just impossible to overcome that last step. We hope that this experience was at least a lesson learned for everybody involved in the project so future “spontaneous interventions” in the City can be developed and implemented smoothly and successfully. Onwards and upwards.