“Brookfield Zoo to Host North American Debut of LEGO Animal Sculpture Exhibit” by S.M. O’Connor

The Brookfield Zoo will display the traveling exhibit of LEGO® animal sculptures Brick Safari from Saturday, May 11, 2019 through Sunday, September 29, 2019. This will be the North American debut of the traveling exhibit of over forty life-sized sculptures, comprised of millions of LEGO® bricks.

The sculptures will be displayed along a winding path on the east side of the zoological park. For the map, click here.

Some of the sculptures, including the lion, giraffe, snow leopard, and pangolin correspond with real animals at Brookfield Zoo. Others, such as the elephant and giant panda and its cubs, have no living counterparts at Brookfield Zoo at present.

The exhibit should appeal to children, Adult Fans of LEGO® (A.F.O.L.), art lovers, and people interested in zoology. Exhibit visitors can take selfies in a Safari Jeep comprised of LEGO® bricks. The gift shop near the exhibit’s exit will be selling a variety of brick-themed products. Colorful exhibit labels next to each sculpture will feature facts and poems about the animals in question. Metro by T- – Mobile is sponsoring the exhibit.

Brick Safari will be open during Zoo Hours. Admission to the exhibit will be $5 for adults and $3 for children (ages three-to-eleven) and senior citizens (ages sixty-five-and-over). Toddlers and infants two-and-under are free. Brookfield Zoo members get half off admission. General zoo admission is $21.95 for adults and $15.95 for children (ages three-to-eleven) and senior citizens (ages sixty-five-and-over).

Figure 1 Caption: This elephant is one of the over forty animal sculptures that will be on display in the exhibit Brick Safari at Brookfield Zoo.

Figure 2 Caption: These macaws are two of the over forty animal sculptures that will be on display in the exhibit Brick Safari at Brookfield Zoo.

Figure 3 Caption: A lion and lion cub are two of the over forty animal sculptures that will be on display in the exhibit Brick Safari at Brookfield Zoo.

BRICKLIVE Group and Bright Bricks employ about sixty people in the U.K. [Please note that The LEGO® Group does not own BRICKLIVE Group and Bright Bricks.] Their parent company, Live Company Group, operates BRICKLIVE events worldwide. Brick Safari has toured Twycross Zoo (in the village of Norton Juxta Twycross in the County of Leicestershire in the English Midlands); the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley (in the county of Surrey south of London); and Marwell Zoo (in the village of Owslebury outside the city of Winchester in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England). It has also appeared at BRICKLIVE events in Glasgow, Scotland; Birmingham, England; and Basel, Switzerland.

The Chicago Zoological Society is a private, non-profit organization that operates Brookfield Zoo on property that belongs to the Forest Preserves of Cook County (formerly called the Forest Preserve District of Cook County). The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (A.Z.A.) accredits the Brookfield Zoo (as well as the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Shedd Aquarium). It is located in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois fourteen miles west of downtown Chicago. The address of the North gate Main Entrance is 8400 31^st Street, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. This is on 31^st Street, west of 1^st Avenue (and thus the Des Plaines River). The address of the South Gate Main Entrance is 3300 Golf Road, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. This is west of Riverside Brookfield Zoo. It is within walking distance of the Hollywood Stop on the Metra’s B.N.S.F. Railway, which runs between Chicago and Aurora. The Website is www.CZS.org.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.