The Doxa

Last week we submitted our invited proposal for the San Francisco Arts Commission’s public artwork at the Palega Recreation Center in the Portola neighborhood…and were proud to make what we think is pretty strong use the letter Z in a project name….and the wind conditions across the site! Check out the proposals page online. This is a bit of a departure from Rebar’s usual public art direction (form-wise) but nevertheless is part of our ongoing exploration of interactive site elements that engage the public with their social and physical environment. From the description…

Zephyros is a wind-activated sculpture in the form of a helix composed of reflective panels braided around a tall aluminum mast. Three unique, tapered  spirals—clustered in the landscape at the crossroads of park pathways—will gently spin at varying speeds, revealing wind patterns that may be unnoticed at ground level. The reflective stainless steel panels will capture light and mirror the activity in the park and in the surrounding neighborhood.

Zephyros is both an environmental art piece that captures and reveals wind patterns in the sky, and a social sculpture that literally reflects the park and the neighborhood. Looking at the piece from below, the visitor sees her own reflection, but also the neighborhood and the sky in an ascending collage high above. The movement in the sky will be made visible on the ground as the sun casts dynamic, undulating shadows across the landscape.

The gently warped panels are made of a light, mirror-finish stainless steel sheet with a reinforcing rib. The design process will test various finishes to identify the best option that shimmers and reflects the sky and light, but does not produce unwanted glare. The panels are light enough to be activated by the wind, but durable enough to withstand the elements. Because they are attached to a single sleeve around the mast, they will turn in sync and use their combined wind force to add to the overall motion.

It’s official–Rebar has been selected by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to create artwork for the new Hilltop Park at Hunter’s Point, in San Francisco, CA. The new piece, which we call Gigantry in honor of its gigantically miniature proportions, is a smaller version of Hunter’s Point’s iconic, 500-foot high gantry crane for servicing battleship guns–a feature that can be seen for miles around the Bay Area. Gigantry can be climbed on, turning the symbol of warfare (and the cultural dominance of the former Navy base) around to serve the playful impulses of human beings, especially the little ones. In our proposal we explained that Gigantry — in conjunction with the environmental remediation going on at the Navy Shipyard

is intended to signify the beginning of a process of social remediation, symbolically confronting this troubling legacy and reclaiming a visual landscape that has been dominated for decades by military infrastructure.

One interesting fact about the gantry crane is that 200-foot tower on top was used to test missile launches over the San Francisco Bay in the 1950s. Essentially, dummy missiles (that is, ones without nuclear warheads) were tethered to the tower with a length of cable so that they wouldn’t careen into the city of Oakland. How times have changed: in addition to its climbability, and we think this is quite neat, Gigantry can perfectly occlude the giant gantry crane, creating a kind of optical illusion that, we hope, transform children into building-dominating supermonsters. Or at least make them feel that way.

More on the Hunter’s Point art program is here, and there are pictures of the site and the gantry crane here and here. We’ll take the sculpture into production this year and will be installed by Summer 2011.

Rebar recently developed a proposal (an awesome proposal, we think) for art at the transit hub of Church and Duboce streets in SF at the invitation of the SF Arts Commission. The basic idea was to re-use the streetcar rail that is being torn out as a part of the streetscape redesign and manufacture them into abstract, industrial street furniture for use by the patrons waiting for Muni. From the propsoal description:

Off the Rails is a re-use and re-imagining of the venerable rails that have kept Muni trains moving through Duboce Triangle for the last 40 years. Light rail tracks—recycled from the construction project that is re-shaping the streetscape—are transformed into gestural art pieces that define the space of the boarding island, offer a grounding point for commuters to pause and rest against, and create a distinctive gateway element for the neighborhood. They are reminders of the mutability of infrastructure and their clean, industrial lines speak to the brawn of the commuter system that makes Duboce Triangle the transit-first residential nexus and a model for neighborhoods across the city.

The three sculptures are composed of six stacked rails each, approximately 15 feet long, rising obliquely out of the boarding platform almost as if they were lifting themselves out of the pavement, then diving back into the ground again. Suddenly along their length, the parallel rails bend, separating and converging to create sculptural “moments”: a seat for one, a plank to lean against, a place to tie your shoe.

Now while the idea wasn’t ultimately picked by the SF Arts Commission (congrats to Primitivo Suarez-Wolfe, who was selected for the commission), we thought we’d post it here until it finds a home somewhere…for real, we’d love to see some old rail re-bent into a new transit station somewhere. Until then, you can read our public proposal here.