Preliminary plans Since the mid-19th century, Grant Park has been Chicago's "front yard", with
Lake Michigan to the east and the Loop to the west.
Columbus Drive runs north–south through Grant Park, with Daley Bicentennial Plaza in the northeast corner of the park. West of Columbus Drive, the northwest corner of the park had been
Illinois Central rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it became available for development by the city as Millennium Park. Millennium Park is also north of Monroe Street and the
Art Institute, east of
Michigan Avenue, and south of
Randolph Street. For 2007, Millennium Park trailed only
Navy Pier as a Chicago tourist attraction. with curving stainless steel plates. In February 1999, the city announced it was negotiating with Frank Gehry to design a
proscenium arch and orchestra enclosure for a
band shell in the new park, as well as a
pedestrian bridge crossing Columbus Drive between Millennium Park and Daley Bicentennial Plaza. The city also sought donors to cover the cost of Gehry's work, which would eventually become Jay Pritzker Pavilion and the BP Pedestrian Bridge. At the time, the
Chicago Tribune dubbed Gehry "the hottest architect in the universe" in reference to the acclaim for his
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Millennium Park project manager Edward Uhlir said "Frank is just the cutting edge of the next century of architecture", and noted that no other architect was being sought. Gehry was approached several times by
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect
Adrian Smith on behalf of the city. In April 1999, the city announced that the Pritzker family had donated $15 million to fund Gehry's band shell and an additional nine donors committed a total of $10 million more to the park. That same day, Gehry agreed to the design request. In November 1999, when he unveiled his initial plans for the bridge and band shell, Gehry admitted the bridge's design was underdeveloped because funding for it was not yet committed. Even at this early point, the need for a sound barrier for Columbus Drive traffic noise was recognized, although Gehry indicated this might take the form of a
berm, or raised barrier. The need to fund a bridge to span the eight-lane Columbus Drive was evident, but some planning for the park was delayed in anticipation of details on the redesign of
Soldier Field. In January 2000, the city announced plans to expand the park to include features that became
Cloud Gate,
Crown Fountain, the
McDonald's Cycle Center, and the BP Pedestrian Bridge. Later that month, Gehry unveiled his next design, which depicted a winding bridge. While the neighboring Jay Pritzker Pavilion changed relatively little from Gehry's 1999 design when built, the bridge went through several proposed designs. That design was not approved, and
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's disapproval of Gehry's subsequent design of an bridge caused Gehry to come up with ten more designs. The first of these plans was for a Z-shaped bridge that would have run northwest–southeast with western ramps in Millennium Park, leading south, and eastern ramps in the empty north section of Daley Bicentennial Plaza, leading north. It would have required elevators to conform to the
Americans with Disabilities Act. Gehry had only designed two bridges previously, both in the mid-1990s (Pferdeturm
USTRA Bridge in
Hanover, Germany and Financial Times Millennium Bridge in
London, United Kingdom) but neither was built.
Final plan in the background. The final design for the bridge was revealed in an exhibit at the
Chicago Cultural Center on June 10, 2000. The clearance was designed to slightly exceed the standard set by the
United States Department of Transportation's
Federal Highway Administration for urban area interstate bridge clearances, and to allow for additional future layers of pavement below. This height is also greater than the maximum vehicle height of set by the Illinois Vehicle Code. According to the
Chicago Tribune the width of the "trenchlike" area spanned is approximately , BP Bridge begins in Millennium Park between the
trellis system over the Jay Pritzker Pavilion's great lawn and the
Lurie Garden; the design was changed so that the west ramp coincided with the boardwalk of the Lurie Garden seam. The bridge winds its way northward along the eastern edge of Millennium Park before crossing Columbus Drive in a C-shaped curve, above underground
parking garage entrances. In Daley Bicentennial Plaza the bridge has an S-shape, then turns east. BP Bridge is designed so that its inclined surfaces have a continuous five percent
slope rather than landings and switchback ramps, which provides easy access for the physically challenged. The gently sloped ramp eliminates the need for lifts or any of the other common types of ramps (L-shaped, switchback, U-shaped, straight), and helped the park earn the 2005 Barrier-Free America Award for its exemplary
barrier-free design. ) Gehry had hoped to design the bridge so that it could be constructed without a support column in the center of Columbus Drive. However,
Chicago Tribune architecture critic
Blair Kamin notes that if he had done so, the bridge might not have been as sleek. The bridge is both a connector and a viewing platform for the park. It was designed to link the Historic Michigan Boulevard District and the entire Loop to the west with the Lake Michigan lakefront to the east. It was also designed to be a berm
noise barrier blocking noise on the eight-lane Columbus Drive from the Park's outdoor band shell (Jay Pritzker Pavilion), by deflecting traffic sounds upward. It contains large sculptural plates of
curvilinear stainless steel instead of more standard flat plates. The concrete base and box girder are flanked by a hollow stainless steel skeleton. Despite its hollow structure, and the fact that it is designed as a concealed
beam bridge, the
footbridge is built to highway standards and can support a full capacity load of pedestrians. The bridge is designed without standard
handrails and uses waist-high
parapets as
guard rails instead. ==Construction==