CHICAGO — It was only a few thousand years ago that the flat expanse of Norwood Park sat along the shore of Lake Michigan.
Under a conceptual plan drawn up for the Chicago Architecture Biennial, an "open-air museum" doubling as a public park would mark the exact spot where an ancient glacier carved out the coastline, leaving a faint but consequential ridge in its path.
"Chicago is known for many things, but one of its most underrepresented aspects is its topography, and how it functions," said architect Dan Weese, who crafted the proposal as part of the biennial's "Between States" exhibit.
Like the Portage Walking Museum, another concept showing at the exhibit this fall, Weese imagines an educational and interactive link between the Des Plaines River and the North Branch of the Chicago River.
But instead of a continuous path lined with serpentine public art fixtures, the route would simply be book-ended by a "gazebo" platform hanging over each river, each with its own informational plaques.
And in between, at the corner of Foster and Oketo avenues, a block-sized museum would mark the "continental divide" separating the Great Lakes watershed from the water that flows into the Mississippi River.
The museum would show ecological and historical diagrams, all centered around a three-dimensional model of the Earth and sun showing how "changes in the Earth's rotation brought about the ice ages," Weese said. It would also include a wading pool with a topographical map of the region on its floor.
"Historically for Chicago, these water patterns have been such a huge part of what makes the city so great and powerful and important," Weese said. "I just felt like there's a bit of a void in people's understanding of that, so to be able to see and understand that physically is potentially a really exciting thing to do."
"Between States" is open to the public from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. every day until Jan. 7 at the Chicago Architecture Foundation Atrium Gallery, 224 S. Michigan Ave.
Organizers describe the exhibit as an "ambitious showcase" of "community-based design solutions to transform underappreciated and underperforming spaces" in each of the city's 50 wards.
Weese's plan includes platforms overhanging the Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers. [Weese Langley Weese]
