"How do you make everyone — not just the people in the seats, but the people sitting 400 feet away on the lawn — feel good about coming to this place to listen to music? And the answer is, you bring them into it. You make the proscenium larger; you build a trellis with a distributed sound system. You make people feel part of the experience."

— Frank Gehry, architect

Downtown Chicago is filled with great buildings, monuments to commerce, creativity, art, history and science. But there is nothing quite like the Pritzker Pavilion, architect Frank Gehry's acoustical and architectural wonder near Lake Michigan's shore.

Intended as the centerpiece of Millennium Park, Gehry's steel creation appears "as though the music has burst through a wall, sending ribbons of stainless steel curling back with the force of the sound."

Others have likened the curving planes of stainless steel to unfurling sails of a massive ship.

These interlocking metal "sails" form the roof of a 4,000-seat outdoor amphitheater with further seating for 7,000 on the Great Lawn. Above this grassy area is an elegant curving metal trellis suspending lights and speakers.

This sound system, the first of its kind in the country, was designed to mimic the acoustics of an indoor concert hall by distributing sound equally over the fixed seats and the lawn. The sound delivered by the speakers is delayed to coincide with the arrival of natural sound from the orchestra. The effect cancels echoing effects and makes the audience believe they are hearing the orchestra live from an impossible distance.

Each summer, the Pritzker Pavilion hosts the Grant Park Music Festival, the nation's only free outdoor summer classical music series, now in its 73rd year. During winter, the massive glass doors enclose smaller audiences for its concerts.

Stroll east from Pritzker Pavilion and cross the only bridge designed by Gehry to another section of Grant Park. The 925-foot pedestrian walkway, clad in the same steel sheet as the bandshell with a hardwood deck, winds like a fluttering ribbon across nearby Columbus Drive.

The pavilion, which opened in 2004, is named for Chicago business leader Jay Pritzker, who with his wife, Cindy, established the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979. www.millenniumpark.org.

Reach Chris Oliver at coliver@honoluluadvertiser.com.