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Fountain of Time

Fountain of Time

Lorado Taft & Howard Van Doren Shaw

Photo: OpenStreetMap and edited by w:User:TonyTheTiger · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Washington Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Client / Owner
Benjamin Ferguson Fund
Year
Completed 1920
Access
Public
Typology
Cultural
Style
—

Fountain of Time stands in Washington Park, at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance in Chicago. Lorado Taft sculpted it, and Howard Van Doren Shaw designed the reflecting pool. A 1905 gift from Benjamin Ferguson funded it. Taft signed the contract on February 6, 1913, and the work was finished in 1920.

The monument is hollow-cast, steel-reinforced concrete. It measures 24 feet by 126 feet 10 inches by 23 feet 6 inches (7.3 by 38.66 by 7.16 meters). A hooded Father Time watches a procession of 100 figures, including soldiers, children and couples, arranged in an ellipse.

It marks 100 years of peace between the United States and Britain after the Treaty of Ghent, signed in 1814. The city accepted it on November 15, 1922. A restoration between 1999 and 2001 cost 1.6 million dollars, and the pool was filled with water in 2005.

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