John McCarter, president of the Field Museum, was seized by a realization on a business trip to London last November.
Back home in Chicago, he thought, the museum had one of the world’s great panoramas right under its nose and was completely ignoring it.
That little epiphany occurred, McCarter said, as he was sightseeing at Trafalgar Square. under the monument to Admiral Nelson.
What struck McCarter’s fancy was a guide erected in the square at a point overlooking Whitehall, the London street lined by historic buildings housing offices of the British government.
“They have this belvedere (a structure designed to command a view) on Trafalgar Square overlooking Whitehall, with the outlines of all the buildings up and down the street and text telling what each building is, the history of it and who the architect was,” McCarter said.
“I started thinking of that magnificent view we have from the north end of the museum, overlooking Grant Park and the city skyline.
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“So often I’ve seen people stop and look at it, caught almost by surprise by how magnificent the view of the city is.”
McCarter decided right there in Trafalgar Square that the Field Museum needed a belvedere of its own. Thursday morning, McCarter unveiled it on the museum’s north terrace overlooking the entrance to the new Museum Campus shared with Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium.
Many consider the skyline at its most striking as seen from the Museum Campus.
By erecting a 25-foot-long “label” that points to all the major buildings, naming them and their architects, along with other pertinent data, the Field Museum has in effect made the city itself an artifact.
“Our out-of-town visitors were always stopping our gardeners and maintenance men outside, asking them to point out famous buildings. With this installation, we can really tell some stories.
“We’ve got explanations of how this was once a coral reef, and what was here before European settlers; what the Chicago Fire did for the city; why Chicago became such a revolutionary center for architecture with the development of fireproofing, elevators and plate glass windows,” McCarter said.
Those stories are told through photographs and text in the $200,000 belvedere, a series of five panels of thick glass with a sweeping photo of the skyline laminated inside.
The panels are positioned so viewers can glance from the skyline to the photograph in the belvedere, making it easy to identify buildings.
The structure was designed by architect Diane Legg Kemp. The panels are supported on cast-bronze pedestals that incorporate big blue-stem prairie grass and oak leaves into the design.
“Those plants were selected . . . because they were so prominent in the landscape here before this area was settled,” said Fay Levin, the museum’s vice president for external affairs who oversaw the project.
The belvedere is outside of the museum, so anyone strolling in the Museum Campus park can use it.
“The turnaround time on this was incredibly fast,” Levin said.
“As fast as it was, we think it’s pretty carefully thought out. The pedestals are an example of that. We could have used some handsome chrome posts to hold all of this up, but we wanted something that is truly public art.”
The museum used the unveiling Thursday as an occasion to formally open its new, 6,000-square-foot museum shop and new restaurant, the Corner Bakery.
The sprawling restaurant, on the north end of Stanley Field Hall on the museum’s main floor, has tables beneath a skeleton of Brachiosaurus, the biggest dinosaur ever found, and among display cases next to windows overlooking the city skyline.
The museum shop, on the south end of Stanley Field Hall, is expected to be a shopping destination on its own. With that in mind, officials gave the store its own entrance, so people can shop there without paying admission to the museum.