09/08/2026
When was the last time you visited a place that actually exceeded the hype?
Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate was chosen from 30 artist proposals by the Millennium Park Art Committee. When it came down to two finalists, the other was Jeff Koons, who proposed a 150-foot glass-and-steel playground and slide.
Chicago chose the Bean.
Kapoor designed Cloud Gate in 1999, with engineering by Atelier One. They bought a 6-axis milling machine from Boeing specifically for the project, and getting that mirror finish right took 9 months.
Then, once it was finally finished, they had to keep it that way. The Bean is cleaned every day and deep cleaned twice a year.
The original estimate was $6 million. The final cost was $23 million.
At the time, that was a huge investment in something that didn’t have an obvious practical purpose.
Now it’s hard to imagine Chicago without the bean.
People meet there. Take their first trip there. Take the same photo every time someone visits from out of town. It shows up on postcards, in movies, in people’s memories. The Bean isn’t just a giant sculpture in the park, it reflects Chicago back onto itself.
At some point, the Bean stopped being something Chicago built and became part of what Chicago is. That’s the part of public art we find interesting.
Sometimes the things that seem hardest to justify on a spreadsheet end up giving a city something you can’t really put a number on.
