Cloud Gate — Chicago Millennium Park

Photo — Link

Cloud Gate — Artist Anish Kapoor

Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its bean-like shape. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It is 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (100 t; 98 long tons) Said to have been inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture's surface reflects and distorts the city's skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m) high arch. On the underside is the "omphalos" (Greek for "navel"), a concave chamber that warps and multiplies reflections. The sculpture builds upon many of Kapoor's artistic themes, and is popular with tourists as a photo-taking opportunity for its unique reflective properties. 20 more images after the break...

Sliding Rock - A Natural Attraction of America

Sliding Rock is a naturally occurring 60-foot waterslide with a seven-foot deep pool that has been developed by the US Forest Service into a recreation area.  Sliding Rock is extremely popular on hot summer weekends.  But, as the picture above shows, there are those willing to slide even on cool fall weekends.  You can either slide yourself or watch others do it from an observation deck opposite the slide. 06 more images after the break...

The Miami Sun By Visiondivision

Another proposal for the much talked about competition for the new landmark at the Bayfront Park in Miami and this time proposal comes from visiondivision practice. Their design captures the soul of Miami as well as giving the city a fresh and innovative icon that would boost Miami's architectural legacy. Here comes the Miami Sun by visiondivision's group.

From the Architects:

Background — Miami is located in the Sunshine State of Florida and is a city that is blessed with a tropical climate and great weather almost all year around, making it a major tourist destination and a popular place to retire. The city of Miami that we know of today is a reclaimed city in many ways. The land where most of the downtown area is, used to be a part of the Everglades wetland, but was drained to create land opportunities. A major part of the city was also created by landfill with the dredging of Biscayne Bay. The majority of Miami Beach is mainly created in this way and this is also the case for the many islands that lies between Miami Beach and the downtown area, such as the port of Miami for example, which is the base for the enormous cruise ships that has their embarkation point from this area. These ships are own little islands in themselves and Miami is the number one cruise port in the world. The tradition of creating new spaces from water leads to a pretty unsentimental and interesting approach to landscaping as well as architecture. The Bayfront Park which is the setting for this new proposed landmark was also created in this traditional way to free new spaces, in this case by setting up a retaining wall and pumping out sea water. 08 more images after the break...

Interactive Photo Series Compares NYC's Past and Present

New York City is constantly evolving and growing, making it difficult to document every change that has occurred, but NYC Grid is taking a stab at it. Run by Paul Sahner the ambitious website seeks to map the entire city "street by street and block by block" through photos. In addition to simply capturing present-day neighborhoods, though, the site also gives a peek of what specific areas looked like in the past, comparing the two in its "Before & After" section.

Each location examined in this catalog presents a side-by-side look at one perspective of the designated place, revealing the differences and similarities over decades and even a century. With a moveable, dividing slider going straight down the middle, visitors are given the opportunity to shift between the past and present. This interactive element reveals changes across time with great ease. As one shifts the slider back and forth, streetlights, modern cars, public art installations, and new buildings vanish and reappear. 11 more images after the break...

Map Represents Waterways Across America

Beginning as an exercise in using open source information rather than to be a piece of art, Nelson Minar's All Rivers map is a detailed representation of every waterway in the bordering 48 United States. By using the National Hydrography Dataset, Minar outlined each river, stream, and creek he could find and related their Strahler number, which is a measure of their significance, onto the vector map he created. This interactive chart allows users to explore the different regions and examine the variety and types of waterways found in the area.

The unexpected result from this is a beautiful networking of blue veins across the country that shows even the most supposedly baron areas have many little waterways running throughout the land. It's both an informative and aesthetically pleasing collection of data. 05 more images after the break...

Map Of The World According To Americans

Being an American I know all too well the terrible, yet often hilarious, stereotypes associated with our common folk geography knowledge and cultural awareness, or better yet lack thereof.

Apparently someone else found this topic to be humorous as well, creating this map dubbed The World According To Americans.  The map is certainly a bit ignorant, but it seems to coincide perfectly with many American’s preconceived notions of places that they know little to nothing about. Either way some of these places certainly made us laugh, and it’s worth taking a closer look at. You can purchase yours at Zazzle. 06 more images after the break..

Animated Timeline of North American Colonization

Animated Timeline of North American Colonization, more image after the break...