9-May-18 – The architect behind the winged Milwaukee Museum of Art and the twisting design of the failed Chicago Spire project will finally get to see his work built along the Chicago River.

Santiago Calatrava has been selected to design a 29-foot-tall by 29-foot-wide sculpture that will be installed next summer on the east side of River Point, the 52-story office tower near the confluence of the Chicago River’s three branches.

In addition to architect and structural engineer, Calatrava (left) is a sculptor and painter. The Turning Torso residential skyscraper in Sweden that he designed, for example, started as a sculpture.

Tentatively called S25, the design of the sculpture at River Point, says the city, “twists in an outward reaching spiral constructed of overlapping leaflike elements descending in scale from very large at the sculpture’s base to very small at the outer reach of the sculpture’s spiral form.”

“Chicago is a city of both outstanding architecture and world-renowned public art,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday. “It is a testament to the new vitality of Chicago’s riverfront that one of the world’s foremost architects and artists chose the banks of the Chicago River for his latest work.”