Examples Public Art in Urban Spaces- text in paving

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We are looking for examples of public art, specifically text or poetry installed into paved areas, including urban plazas, streetscapes, sidewalks, streets, etc. We are currently working in Iowa City, Iowa on a public Street improvements project and are looking to inject the written word as art into the corridor. If anyone has visited or worked on such a project, please let me know.

Thank you!

Brian Clark, Landscape Architect Principal Brian Clark and Associates Des Moines, Iowa

-- Brian Clark (bcbca@bcadesign.com), October 15, 1999

Answers

David Harding collaborated with poet Alan Bold to make a walkway embedded with words in the Scottish town of Glenrothes, as far back as the mid 1970s. I'm sure David Harding can be contacted via the Glasgow School of Art (http://www.gsa.ac.uk). In the North East of England we have several projects completed in the late 1990s that incorporate text into existing walls and paving, or the artworks themselves have a fair amount of text on them: all sorts of different approaches. You could also go for temporary things like posters, or different media such as light or neon signs. If you would like individual examples please contact me direct. Regards, Jeremy Beach, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. http://gofast.to/JBeach

-- Jeremy Beach (j.beach@pmail.net), October 18, 1999.

In the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, or maybe its Roxbury, there is a lovely project at the entry plaza of the subway station there. A story had been sandblasted into a 6 foot high collumn of black stone. It was a story about the neighborhood: I can't remember the words, or the story, but I do remember I was quite moved.

The station might have been Green Street... Not sure, but I'm sure that "Urban Arts" in Boston, or the "Jamaica Plain Arts Newsletter" could connect you with the designers.

-- Lex Bhagat (icebreaker_NY@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.


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