Chicago Loop / La Tormenta - by Inigo Manglano-Ovalle

La Tormenta - by Inigo Manglano-Ovalle



La Tormenta / The Storm - by Inigo Manglano Ovalle

Installed: 2006

Fiberglass and Titanium Alloy Foil

Location: 101 W Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago

Commissioned by US GSA Art-in-Architecture program

Born in Spain, artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle explored the ways individual affect and are affected by complex systems. Through space forms and diverse media his work examins subjects like economics, politics and immigration. He often uses weather as a metaphor to engage these topics.

Chicago Loop / The Flamingo - by Alexander Calder

The Flamingo - by Alexander Calder

Installed: 1974

53' high X 29' wide X 60' length

Location: Chicago Federal Plaza

Commissioned by the US GSA Art in Architecture program

This sculpture titled "Flamingo" is made by Alexander Calder, one of the most eminent sculptors of the 20th century American art.  "The sculpture was received in a public ceremony never before nor since equaled in scale nor in fanfare".

It's brilliant color and graceful curves are a great contrast to the three black and blocky buildings surrounding it. The Chicago Federal Center comprises of three buildings -The Everett McKinley Dirksen Building, the John C. Kluczynski Building, and the Loop Post Office.  All the three Federal buildings are designed by Mies Van Der Rohe  

Chicago - Near West Side / Batcolum - by Claes Oldenburg

Batcolum - by Claes Oldenburg

1977 

Cor-Ten steel painted gray / H 100 ft.

Location: Harold Washington Social Security Administration Building Plaza..

600 W. Madison

Commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration,
 through its Art-in-Architecture Program

On observing Chicago’s flat terrain, the Swedish-born artist once commented, “the real art here is architecture, or anything that really stands up.” . Like all of Oldenburg’s monuments, Batcolumn combines a humorous and irreverent attitude toward popular objects with meticulous construction details and handling of scale and proportion. It can alternately be seen as a reference to historical monumental columns, a salute to the American institution of baseball or a tribute to the steel industry.

Chicago Loop / The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella

The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella

The Town-Ho's Story - by Frank Stella 

1993

Aluminum and steel sculpture 

22' High  and 12' x 15' Base 

Location: Lobby of the Metcalfe Federal Building

77 W. Jackson Blvd, the Loop, Chicago

Commissioned by the U.S. GSA  Art-in-Architecture program

GSA is General Services Administration

Frank Stella was born in 1936 in Malden, Massachusetts, and studied in Princeton Universty. He is an internationally known artist whose United States collection includes the Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum at Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.