Art on the street includes street art, but the reverse isn’t true.
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Oak Park Arts District cross walk. Photo by I BIKE UIC / April Yvonne.
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Bloomingdale Trail mural by Jeff Zoline. The quantity of art will only be increasing in the next few years as the viaduct undergoes a transformation to become a trail and linear park.
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This mural at the Oak Street underpass at the Lakefront Trail/Lake Shore Drive was painted by Jeff Zimmerman and his assistants. Read about the project and view interviews and a time-lapse video on his website. Photo by Michelle Stenzel
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Bike rack in front of a small mural about reading books in Oak Park. Photo by Clark Maxwell.
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A cyclist rides past a mural on Damen Avenue just south of Pierce Avenue. Photo by Drew Baker.
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Zeb’s personal map of the CTA in the People’s Atlas. Photo by Oscar Arriola.
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Photo of a CTA bus stop advertisement for Rush University by Michelle Stenzel.
The schedule tells me that next week’s topic is “our deteriorating infrastructure”. Add your photos to our Flickr group and tag them “deteriorating”.
Rush University Hospital will be happy you think their newly iconic butterfly X shape is art. It’s a great example of form following function. The cross of the X puts the nurses station closer to more patients. The surface area of the X gives each patient room more windows and more light. It’s a great design for a hospital, even if that thing on the bus stop looks like a gingerbread man with no head.
http://blog.chicagoarchitecture.info/2011/12/10/inside-and-outside-the-new-rush-hospital/
I don’t feel qualified to express what I feel is or isn’t art. I had a feeling that someone would comment on my inclusion of that bus stop. But there’s another player at work here: the original photographer. She tagged the photo with “art” and that’s how I found it within the group. I like the design, aesthetically, from some viewpoints in the city, but not from others. I’m not a fan of some of the other things they built along with it like the squared “park” south of the building along Ashland. It’s too contrived and constricted by its own geometry. There are benches where no one will sit. The park is not within the path of anyone’s journey and it has no features to become a feature in and of itself.
Well, I do have a broad definition of “art”, I suppose. Yes, the sculptural object on top of the bus stop is part of an advertisement, but it’s an interesting and beautiful design, in my opinion, and I consider it art. I’m generally not a fan of commercial advertisements on most public structures, but when it’s something whimsical like this, somehow I make an exception.
It does feel like a piece of abstract art. Isn’t it a treat when advertising actually gives some visual pleasure in addition to its message?
It’s not always obvious that what you’re looking it is a top-view outline of the hospital’s new building. But they’ve been very consistent in their messaging in trying to identify that building as iconic and representing the hospital.