This video traces the life of the “I will” motto and its visualization as a neoclassical Athena-inspired figure associated with Chicago in its post-fire period of rebirth culminating with the period of the Columbian Exposition of 1891. The image fell out of favor but the motto remains meaningful today as the video shows. The neoclassical image gives way to a minimalist contemporary one.
It also compares the resonances of “I will” with an even older city motto, “City in a Garden, ” which features on city seal in Latin — URBS IN HORTO.
City in a Garden continues today to resonate powerfully.