Entries associated with the tag "Chicago Children's Museum":

Let's move the International Museum of Surgical Science to Grant Park. (Alternately: the Hamilton Woodtype Museum.)

What?

"This comprehensive exhibit begins with the birth of orthopedics with Nicolas Andry in the 17th century and include discoveries and milestones in orthopedic surgery, as well as the evolution of amputation methods and prosthesis design from ancient times to the present. Featured in the exhibit are historical artifacts from the Museum’s extensive collection, including ancient bone-cutting tools, Civil War amputation kits, and 19th-century splints and artificial limbs. These objects are accompanied by archival manuscripts and artworks in several media that highlight orthopedic and prosthetic pioneers and their great discoveries and inventions."

Oh, like you'd prefer the BIG Backyard. 

Just, wow.

Chicago Children's Museum officials were in the Woodlawn neighborhood Thursday night pitching their $100 million plan to relocate the facility to Grant Park to a lively group of about 200 children from after-school programs.

As the children munched on pretzels and drank from juice boxes at the Harris Park Field House, Jim Law, the museum's vice president of planning and external affairs, said the project was good for families.

[snip]

At the end of the meeting, the children were told to fill out a card urging aldermen to "support this museum for children from our neighborhood."

Steve Rhodes asks: "Did anyone ask why the museum didn't consider locating in Woodlawn then?" Actually, Woodlawn could use it. Woodlawn could use something besides townhouses, apartment buildings, and vacant lots. But it's cool, because the Olympics will definitely be in Washington Park in 2016.

Chicago: The City That Wouldn't Grow Up.

WHEREAS children, at least boy-children for the most part, love cars;

WHEREAS everyone loves the Berwyn Spindle, an important part of our film heritage;

WHEREAS WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN? CHICAGO IS ABOUT CHILDREN! SPITTLE FLECKS!

WHEREAS the Spindle is Brutalist;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

"'[The Tribune is] advising me what to do with the city and they're going right in the tank. I love that. The Sun-Times is in there, too. This is unbelievable. They're giving us advice constantly on how to run the city, [while] their stock is going down,' Daley said."

Is it possible that he just doesn't understand how taxation and budget deficits work? Because that would explain a lot.

The two views presented here, screenshots from Fox News Chicago's Wednesday report by Tera Williams on the introduction of the Chicago Children's Museum proposal to build itself a new museum in Grant Park into the City Council, make it all too obvious why the CCM works overtime to keep them hidden from the general public. (None of these drawings, apparently, were presented to the Chicago Park District before they rubber-stamped the museum's land grab of park property earlier this week. )

Lynn Becker has screen grabs and a critique of the "desperately busy and unsettling" Chicago Children's Museum design (from the same architects who did the remarkable Spertus building), which have been hard to come by. He doesn't like it, and not just because it's a much busier intrusion on the park than the Daley Bicentennial Fieldhouse. Andrew Patner, who is a friend and fan of the architects, is also unimpressed: "I think that they would do a superb job with this project -- if they could design it as an above-ground building for another site. In Grant Park, they are trying to solve a problem, and a problem that need not be addressed at all."

Lois Wille seems to be an unlikely person to misunderstand what parkland is, but here you go:

"The museum, where youngsters learn while they play, fills that gap. They enjoy racing along architect Frank Gehry's serpentine bridge above Millennium, but so far it's a bridge to nowhere. In this new site, the Children's Museum will be waiting for them."

If this move goes through, perhaps they can expand the BIG Backyard room, which provides children with fun, a valuable sense of irony, and a glimpse into the manufactured outdoors we'll all live in as the world evolves into an apocalyptic post-industrial hellscape.

"Art meets technology in BIG Backyard, a wondrous urban garden, filled with enormous insects, giggling flowers, giant toadstools and other fantasy creations that stir the senses and make imaginations bloom. Through innovative technology, you can immerse yourself in the action and discover what it's like to be part of the city's landscape."

Come to think of it, that's pretty damn educational. I didn't learn about hyperreality until I got to college.