[OhioGuy]

First new Loop 'L' station in 20 years creates curvy gateway to Millennium Park
By Blair Kamin - Contact Reporter
August 30, 2017, 6:20 AM

Waave hello to the Loop's striking new elevated station. It's going to wave back.

The first new Loop elevated stop in 20 years, the $75 million Washington-Wabash Station stands out because the canopies covering its passenger platforms appear to undulate, like the skeleton of a skinny reptile.

Opening Thursday after more than two years of noisy, traffic-halting construction, the festive station is meant to serve as a gateway to the crowd-pleasing spectacle of nearby Millennium Park. And an impressive gateway it is, though it seems to copy the work of the global architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, whose best known completed work in the Midwest is his striking, bird-like addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Yet on the whole, the designers, Chicago-based exp, have created an authentic blend of form and function, not a superficial exercise in Calatrava Lite.