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photograph by : Brook Collins / Chicago Park District .
Alfred Caldwell softly created landscape painting touch those of his famous wise man Jens Jensen . Now , one of Caldwell ’s brilliant works officially ranks among the best , on a forgetful list that includes Jensen ’s Columbus Park in Chicago . The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool at Chicago ’s Lincoln Park has been named a National Historic Landmark , making it one of fewer than 50 landscapes to receive the nation ’s highest honor for historical properties .
Designed in the thirties as a chancel from what Caldwell called Megalopolis , the lily pool was intend to evoke a Midwestern prairie river and include stonework , a marquee , waterfall , council ring and native planting ( Caldwell bribe the wildflower by cash his sprightliness policy policy ) . Sadly , in subsequent years it fell into ruin . Though a 1993 restoration dillydally , at the bit of the 100 the garden undergo an thoroughgoing $ 2.5 million effort lead by Chicago Park District and Lincoln Park Conservancy .
Caldwell , who died in 1998 at eld 95 , was a prolific landscape painting and structural architect , instructor , reader , creative person , philosopher and poet . He never achieved during his foresighted life the acclaim many say he deserved , although scholarship distinguish him as the last great interior designer of the 20th 100 ’s Prairie School . “ The lily puddle is so incredibly beautiful , ” says Julia Sniderman Bachrach , Chicago Park District historian . “ It is one of the few sites where you could see Caldwell ’s ideas fully implemented . ”
Charles Birnbaum , laminitis of The Cultural Landscape Foundation , pronounce part of the grounds why so few of the nearly 2,900 national historic landmarks are landscapes is that the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act did not focus on outdoor blank . Not until 1989 did the National Register of Historic Places publish guidelines for these character of internet site . “ For many of these landscapes , it ’s publish or perish , ” Birnbaum say . gratefully a 1997 Caldwell book edited by Dennis Domer ( Alfred Caldwell : The Life and Times of a Prairie School Landscape Architect , The Johns Hopkins University Press ) brought the designer ’s genius and his Lily Pool to public tending .
The Lily Pool is open daily ; devoid guided circuit are held Fridays and weekends , former April through October . For more data visitChicago Parks District
