Frank Gehry's great outdoor concert hall opens in front of you. Completed in 2004, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion erupts in ribbons of brushed stainless steel that peel back from the stage like sheets of silver wind. But Gehry's real innovation is overhead and invisible at first: a trellis of steel pipes arches across the lawn, hanging speakers above the entire audience so that twelve thousand people on open grass hear sound as crisp as in an indoor hall.
The pavilion is the summer home of the Grant Park Music Festival, which has offered free classical concerts to the city since the 1930s. There are no walls and no tickets for the lawn. Notice the steel trellis crossing overhead and the curling metal sails framing the stage — proof that Chicago let one of the world's boldest architects loose on its front yard.