public sculpture – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Outer Harmony

Posted by Cindy on April 22, 2015

Apr 222015

Armonia Exterior by Ramon Casas – 2013

In December of 2010, the city of Santiago de Cuba held its first Rene Valdes Cedeño Public Sculpture Symposium. Sponsored by the Caguayo Foundation and the Advisory Council for the Development of Public Sculptures and Monuments, the symposium seeks to promote sculpting in marble and metals. Armonía Exterior was a result of the 2013 Symposium, the pieces that came out of the project were put around Santiago de Cuba.

Ramon Casas graduated from the National School of Arts (ENA) in Havana in 1976, he then went on to study at the Higher Arts Institute (ISA) in Havana, Cuba and graduated in 1982.

Los Lobos de Loyola

Posted by Cindy on December 10, 2014

Dec 102014

University of San Francisco
Fulton Street
In Front of Gleeson Library/Geshke Center
Inner Richmond

Commissioned by USF this piece was installed November of 2011. The 2-ton work, Los Lobos de Loyola, depicts the wolves and stewpot from the family coat of arms of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. Some say the 15th-century image is a pun on the Loyola family name (“lobos y olla,” wolves and a stewpot); others suggest the pot is a symbol of hospitality and the wolves point to the family’s reputation as warriors.

Crafted by Pancho Cardenas, the eight-foot high by sixteen foot long bronze is a second edition of Cardenas’ original work created for the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City a decade ago.

Francisco Cárdenas Martínez, also known as Pancho Cárdenas, is a Mexican artist. He was born 1956, in Iztapalapa, east of Mexico City.

He is noted for his statue of Pope John Paul II with Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, made entirely with keys donated by Mexicans to symbolize that they had given him the keys to their hearts.

Spring Valley Water Company

Posted by Cindy on June 26, 2013

Jun 262013

425 Mason Street
Lower Nob Hill/Tenderloin

This unassuming and yet intriguing little building has been sitting in my computer waiting to be written about since March of 2012. My late husband, the architectural sculptor Michael H. Casey had driven me by to show me the wonderful detailed sculpture that covered the first floor. I was unable to find out anything about it and so the post was left unwritten.

In the past few months I had the privilege of hearing Gray Brechin, UC Berkeley lecturer and author, speak on the architecture of the UC campus. I purchased his highly detailed tome titled “Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin‘” to further my education on San Francisco’s history. He has chapters dedicated to the fights and corruption of water and its history within our fair city. Most San Franciscan’s familiar with their city’s history know of the fight to bring water to a sea surrounded town, but Gray brings it to life with some underbelly stories that make reading his book worth every second.

An excerpt from the book:

Between the mid 1860s and 1930, San Francisco’s water supply was controlled by the Spring Valley Water Company. As one of the most powerful private monopolies in the state, Spring Valley was controlled by, and used largely for the benefit of, the local land barons and financiers who authorized the development of a wide variety of often-destructive hydrologic projects. Efforts to de-privatize the city’s water supply began under the Progressive mayoral administration of James Phelan, and pressure mounted after the failure of the water supply during the 1906 Earthquake and fire. Eventually the Hetch Hetchy source was secured for the city, ending Spring Valley’s corrupt monopoly.

The Spring Valley Water Company was a private company that held a monopoly on water rights in San Francisco from 1860 to 1930. Run by land barons, its 70-year history was fraught with corruption, land speculation, favoritism towards the moneyed elite, and widespread ill will from the general populace.

***

And yet, that is not what led me to write this post. In researching the First National Bank I took quite a long time to find the artist of the canopy over the side entrance to the bank. Emily Michels was a school teacher in San Francisco, and thus did not warrant much space on the hundreds of art sites dedicated to finding artists in the world. However, again thanks to the UC Bancroft Library, none-the-less, I found her.

It was in reading an interview with her that I discovered she was the one responsible for the water pouring down the Spring Valley Water Company building.

The building was designed by Willis Polk, who was a specialist in public-utility architecture and one of San Francisco’s leading architects. He was the architect on the Central Pump Station in San Francisco.

I found this excerpt about the building in The San Francisco Water, Volumes 1-8 dated January 1923

“The first two stories and part of the third will be devoted to the Water Sales Department. The fourth story will house the Agricultural Photographic, Publicity, Purchasing and Real Estate departments. The fifth will be occupied by the executive offices of the president and vice-president and manager. The sixth will be given over to the offices of the secretary and auditor. The top floor will accommodate the Engineering Department.

On the roof there will be a girls’ restroom, with a kitchen, set in the midst of a garden planted to grass and flowers, the latter being an unusual feature for the office building. The distinctive feature of the main floor will be a fountain designed by the distinguished sculptor, Arthur Putnam.

The public spaces in the building will have marble floors and wainscotings. The woodwork throughout will be oak. An intercommunicating Dictograph system will be installed to relieve the pressure on the telephone exchange.”

***

It is interesting that Arthur Putnam also was a sculptor on the First National Bank.

The City and County of San Francisco acquired the property on March 3, 1930 when it purchased Spring Valley Water Company’s water system. The building served as headquarters for the San Francisco Water Department until January 2003. The City declared the property surplus and placed it on the market in June 2007 at that time the sale price was $5,600,000.

Five Questions

Posted by Cindy on June 13, 2013

Jun 132013

Mint Plaza
SOMA/Market Street Area/Union Square

WHAT is on the Side of the San Francisco Chronicle Building at 5th and Minna

These two sculptures are part of a large project, within an even larger project.

The larger project is called the 5M project.

The 5M Project is a creative development in downtown San Francisco designed to catalyze the innovative ideas that build our economy and strengthen our communities. It is a place that utilizes a collective need for innovation to encourage shared resources and ideas across traditional boundaries. Where artists, makers, students, changemakers, entrepreneurs, local food, and technology are coming together day and night. A place designed for people to be creative.

In the last two years, 5M has assembled and connected more than 2,000 creative organizations linked together at 5M through their partners: TechShop, Hub, SoMa Central, SFMade, Intersection for the Arts, Off the Grid and SOCAP, among others. Together, they are transforming an underutilized property into a vibrant place for community and innovation.

Over the next ten years, the four-acre site (between 5th, Mission, and Howard Streets) will become a mix of low, mid, and high rise buildings for living, working, and playing.

These two sculptures are the first of five sculptures that ask Who, What, When, Where and Why and are put together by the Intersection for the Arts program. Established in 1965, Intersection is a pioneering arts and community development organization that brings people together across boundaries to instigate break-through change. Intersection’s programs emphasize relationships, collaboration, and process. Intersection works with hundreds of artists through residencies, commissions, fellowships, fiscal sponsorship and incubation, performances, exhibitions, workshops and public art projects. Annually, Intersection works with more than 50 community partners across sector and field. Intersection is a lead collaborator on the 5M Project.

The WHO sculpture is a 10 foot long, 300lb steel bench made of 7 gauge A-36 steel and sits in Mint Plaza on the 5th Street Side.

The artists for this project are of five illuminated sculptures to be installed around the area are artist Ana Teresa Fernandez and designer & architect Johanna Grawunder.

Ana Teresa Fernandez is a visual artist, sculptor, and performance artist based in San Francisco, CA. Originally from Tampico, Mexico, Fernandez explores the territories that encompass different boundaries and stereotypes: physical, emotional, and psychological. She subverts the typical folkloric representations of Mexican women by changing the protagonist’s uniform to the quintessential little black dress, a symbol of American prosperity and femininity and of the Mexican tradition of wearing black for a year after a death. Her paintings portray actual performances where Fernandez takes on the Sisyphean task of cleaning the environment – sweeping sand on a beach, vacuuming a dirt road – to accentuate the idea of disposable labor resources. She received her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute

Johanna Grawunder is a designer and architect based in Milan, Italy and San Francisco. Her work spans a broad range of projects and scales, from large-scale public installations, architecture and interiors, to limited edition furniture and lights and custom commissions. She worked with Sottsass Associati from 1985-2001, becoming a partner in 1989. At the Sottsass Studio she was involved primarily with architecture and interiors, co-designing with Ettore Sottsass, many of the firm’s most prestigious projects. In 2001 she left Sottsass Associati and opened her own studio in San Francisco and Milan. Graduating in 1984 from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor of Architecture degree, she completed her final year of studies in Florence, Italy and in 1985 moved to Milan. She was born in 1961 in San Diego, California.

Bliss Dance

Posted by Cindy on June 6, 2013

Jun 062013

9th and Avenue of the Palms
Treasure Island

This piece, by Marco Cochrane , was featured at Burning Man in 2010. According to the supporting art group Black Rock :

The sculpture, of a dancing woman, stands 40 feet tall, weighs 7000 pounds and is ingeniously constructed of triangulated geodesic struts. By day, the dancer’s ‘skin’, made of stainless steal mesh, shimmers in the sun. By night, it alights brilliantly with a complex array of 1000 slowly changing l.e.d. colored lights. Viewers may interact with and manipulate the lighting effects with an iphone application. The dancer’s delicate, graceful form precariously balances on one foot, adding to the astonishing impression of imminent movement and lifelike presence.

Marco Cochrane was born to American artists in Venice, Italy in 1962. He was raised in California in the midst of the political and cultural movement. As a result, Marco learned respect for oneness, balance, the sacred, and the imperative to make the world a better place. In particular, he identified with the female struggle with oppression, and he saw feminine energy and power as critical to the world’s balance. Supporting this change quickly became Marco’s life’s mission, although, it never occurred to him that art would be the vehicle. On a dare, he explored sculpting people and found a talent he was unaware of…the ability to re-create a person’s essence in figurative form. When Marco started sculpting, he realized he was pursuing the mission he’d set out to do…to empower women.

Photo by David Yu, you can view more photos of Bliss Dance at Night here:

The King of Beasts in Golden Gate Park

Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2013

May 112013

Golden Gate Park
Music Concourse

This lion sits outside of the new DeYoung Museum near the Pool of Enchantment. It is by Roland Hinton Perry. Created in 1898 it was given to the City of San Francisco in 1906 by San Francisco jeweler Shreve and Company. The sculpture survived a fire in Shreve’s showroom caused by the ’06 earthquake.

The red stone the sculpture sits on was donated by John D. McGilvray. John D. McGilvray Jr. and Sr. worked in the stone and masonry contracting business in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Palo Alto, California. ( McGilvray-Raymond Granite Company) Together they helped build many of San Francisco’s best known buildings including the City Hall, the Civic Auditorium, the Public Library, the State Building, the St. Francis Hotel, the Emporium, the Flood Building, the Stanford University Chapel and the original buildings on the Stanford campus.

Roland Hinton Perry was born in New York City to George and Ione Hinton Perry January 25, 1870. He entered the École des Beaux Arts in 1890 at the age of 19. At 21, he studied at the Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris and focused on sculpture, the medium in which he would achieve the most artistic success.

After returning to the United States, Perry received a commission to sculpt a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress inWashington, D.C. in 1894. The following year, he was commissioned to create the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of the Library’s main building, now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. He died October 28, 1941.

Viscitation Valley – Rebar Art Consortium

Posted by Cindy on June 6, 2011

Jun 062011

Corner of Leland Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard – Viscitation Valley – San Francisco

“Sprouting” from the sidewalk like stalks of organically grown street furniture, Street Life is a large-scale sculpture composed of surplus parking meter heads, painted dark orange, attached to tall, arcing steel poles. The sculpture marks the gateway to the entrance of what locals refer to as “downtown” Visitacion Valley.

The installation is by a team of artists called Rebar. According to Rebar founder Matthew Passmore, “Street Life encourages viewers to imagine new possibilities for automobile infrastructure that is outmoded. The street furnishings of today may well be the art supplies of tomorrow.”

Rebar’s website is a feast of eye candy for sculpture fans like me. Their projects are just amazing.

This project was funded by the San Francisco Art Commission for $38,000.