Stroke of Genius: Part of a mayor's push to make the Chicago River a public asset, an energetic building turns structure and materials into a graceful expression of the activity it houses.
A rower crouches with her knees tucked below her fists, then dips her oars in the water and pulls back. The lines of the oars sketch an elegant V in the air, which is repeated over and over as the slender boat cuts through the water. Jeanne Gang thought about such movement when she started designing the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park in Chicago. She looked at Eadweard Muybridge's famous stop-motion photographs of rowers, eventually translating the dynamic lines of the oars into her building's distinctive sawtooth roofs and the exposed trusses that support them. The 22,600-square-foot boathouse, which cost $8.8 million to construct, continues to demonstrate Gang's interest in the Chicago River and her commitment to turning the much-abused waterway into a public amenity.
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