Public Art Projects

Public Art Design Process

After exploration of the district to which it was assigned, each artist team contributed written observations, conclusions and photographs that were incorporated into an Existing Conditions Report summarized and prepared by the urban design team. This report provided the basis for the development of urban design guidelines, in addition to information collected at the community meetings and from the technical advisory committee.

In the summer of 1997, the artist teams began the conceptual design of art elements based on input from a series of community meetings, each team’s research, and the design guidelines. A series of design charettes with the artist teams and urban design team members took place over a period of several months, resulting in designs for platforms with art elements, an artistic trackway paving treatment, some streetscaping and one stand alone sculpture.

The Mission Bay Artist Team proposed numerous platform designs that were received with enthusiasm by the urban design team. The project architect modified one of the artist team’s specific platform designs to create the standard platform design that includes a glass canopy with a tall, lighted metal marquee pole at one end, and several vertical windscreens that will accommodate ads and artwork. Bill and Mary Buchen then developed specific art elements for the Mission Bay platforms, and Ken Smith developed the red and black banded design, with white traffic bumps, for the entire Third Street Light Rail trackbed, from the 4th and King platform to the Sunnydale platform.

Artist Teams were instructed to develop platform art elements based on themes identified at Muni’s community meetings. The overall light rail design theme for the entire line reflects a working artisan sensibility, inspired by the industrial and craft legacy of this part of the city, as requested by community representatives. Themes for individual stations at key stations in the north end of the line include: railroading, biotechnology, and nature; in Bayview Hunters Point: shipbuilding, Afro-Centric designs, and nature; and in Visitacion Valley/ Little Hollywood: nature and Asian inspired motifs.

A full range of art elements will be installed at the nine town center stations.  Varying from station to station, these art elements will include a custom designed canopy pole sculpture attachment, special paving treatments, cut-out metal panels suspended over the glass canopy panels that cast shadows on the platforms, and vertical, double-sided windscreen designs. Historical photographs, artist designed images and interpretive text will be incorporated into these windscreens, enhancing the specific theme at each of these nine stations.

In addition, the other 19 platforms will each have a standard canopy pole sculpture attachment designed by the artist team of Anita Margrill and Nobuho Nagasawa, and permanent windscreen panels designed by youth residing in neighborhoods along Third Street.

Examples of Public Design Concepts

The trackway paving design is a five and a quarter mile long concrete artwork consisting of an alternating pattern of black and red bands varying in width that reference the movement of the light rail trains. Near the platforms, the bands will become shorter, lengthening in the distances between stations. Mounted on the trackway surface over the paving pattern will be traffic dots in geometric patterns to both enhance the design surface and discourage pedestrians, cars, and bicycles from crossing the trackway except at intersections.

The canopy poles will all have lights at the top that flash at the approach of trains, with sculptural art attachments near the top, providing a lively line of both flashing lights and artistic elements visible along the entire transit corridor. At five of the town center stations, the pole sculpture attachments are designed to reflect the themes for each individual station. For example, the South Street station has a sculptural element suggestive of DNA, reflecting the biotechnological activity at the adjacent UCSF campus; the marquee attachment on the Afrocentric theme station in Bayview is based on a specific African sculpture; and the Sunnydale station will have a series of lantern shapes mounted on the marquee to reflect the Asian inspired theme of the platform.

Artistic elements on any platform designated to receive art enhancement relate to the specific theme developed for that platform. Artist Team members are working with historians to develop the images and text for various historic art elements on several of the stations. On a Bayview station on which the design is focused on shipbuilding, referring to the nearby Hunters Point shipyards that operated until the 1950s, a terrazzo outline of a specific ship will be inlaid into the platform surface, the silhouette panels in the canopy will have cutout shapes of shipworking tools, and the windscreens will illustrate and describe the history of the shipyards.

Artwork for Muni Metro East »