Crown Fountain

This fountain, located in Chicago's Millennium Park, consists of two 50-foot glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers project an ever-changing array of video images from a broad social spectrum of Chicago citizens, a reference to the traditional use of gargoyles in fountains, where faces of mythological beings were sculpted with open mouths to allow water, a symbol of life, to flow out. Spanish Artist Jaume Plensa adapted this practice by having faces of Chicago citizens projected on LED screens and having water flow through a water outlet in the screen to give the illusion of water spouting from their mouths. The collection of faces, Plensa's tribute to Chicagoans, was taken from a cross-section of 1000 residents (text from website Millennium Park).