Left: Dan Purciarello, who served as project manager for the rehabilitation of the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool for the Chicago Park District, leads the on-site seminar, assisted by MELA board member Shawn Kingzette (far right)

The Lily Pool, adjacent to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, is undergoing its second major restoration in eighty years. The first was in 1936 when Caldwell, a disciple of Jens Jensen, and a man who is often considered the last  Prairie School designer of the Twentieth Century, redesigned the pool, which dated back to 1889 but was in disrepair. By the 1950s, however, Caldwell's design, too, had become a victim of neglect, as the space was used as a rookery for the zoo. In the 1960s the Chicago Park District added large amounts of stone to address erosion problems, further corrupting Caldwell's work. With the renaming of the space as the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool in 2000, a joint effort between the CPD and the Lincoln Park Conservancy was initiated. Its goal was to renovate the pool in a way that would honor Caldwell's ideals by implementing them in a modern context.

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool
MELA tour
July 29, 2005

Right and Below: The seminar winds it's way through the Lily Pool area, finshing at an iconic Midwest design--the council ring.