Landscape Information
Measuring 85-acres, this linear park, which cuts through the University of Chicago campus, includes a mile-long boulevard that links Washington and Jackson Parks. Designed in 1870 by Olmsted and Vaux as part of their South Park System, the park was meant to feature a pleasure drive and an intricate canal system that would provide a waterway from Lake Michigan to the Washington Park meer, but this design was never realized.
In 1893 the Midway Plaisance was selected as the area to host the entertainment section of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Amusements such as the world’s first Ferris wheel were located here, as were exhibitions, foreign pavilions, and other attractions. After the exhibition closed, the site was redesigned by Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot to include drives lined with elm trees, walks, bridle paths, and an axial canal down the center (never realized). A dry fosse currently marks the proposed location of the canal.
The Midway has been improved over the last century. In 1922, sculptor Lorado Taft's 126-foot long allegorical Fountain of Time, with consultation about the concrete by John Joseph Earley, was added at the park's western end. A sunken perennial Women's Garden designed by Chicago Park District's landscape architect May E. McAdams was installed at the Midway's eastern end in the 1930s.
Olin Partnership (now OLIN) and Wolff Clements and Associates landscape architects (now Confluence) developed a master plan for the Midway in 2000, resulting in designs for the Dr. Allison Davis Garden, Winter Garden, Reader’s Garden, and an ice rink. The former, conceptually linked to Taft's fountain, was rehabilitated by Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture (now Hoerr Schaudt) in 2005. In 2021, the Women's Garden was demolished to make way for the Obama Presidential Center.
The Midway Plaisance is a contributing feature of the Jackson Park Historic Landscape District and Midway Plaisance listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is a contributing feature of the Historic Resources of the Chicago Park District listed in 1990 and the Chicago Park Boulevard System Historic District listed in 2018.
