Monday, January 7, 2008

The Arts and Light Rail

If you visit Phoenix Metro's Light Rail web site and click on the "Stations" page, you will notice that they mention "Art will also be featured at the stations and in the light rail bridge over the Tempe Town Lake. The project will feature artwork from both local and national artists in a variety of mediums. Station artwork can be stand-alone or integrated into the station design"

Each of the stations have different art work. For instance, if you click on the 19th Avenue and Montebello Station, you will see picture of the design and the name of the artist that was chosen. ie:
Artist: Bob Adams Phoenix, AZSteel panels mounted in the louver supports above the shade canopies will create a constantly shifting visual effect. The panels will be perforated in various sizes and painted with dichromatic colors. This will create a moiré pattern to pedestrians and riders.
While looking at each stations art work, it made me think of a few attractions close to the rail line. For instance:

The Heard Museum is easily accessed from Encanto and Central.
The Phoenix Art Museum is very close to McDowell and Central.
The Phoenix Museum of History is west of Washington & Central.
The Arizona Science Center is East of 3rd St & Washington.
The Pueblo Grande Museum is East of 44th St & Washington.

There has been a lot of media attention to the "commercial" uses for light rail and there are indeed many. I think the historic and educational opportunities are tremendous as well. In the future, I'll showcase some of the cool music and entertainment aspects along the line.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's quite a few museums on the new line. It'd be pretty cool if those museums had a hand in selecting the artwork that gets presented at their local station. It could be a great way of letting people know the museum is nearby, as well as to encourage people to use the line for recreational use, in addition to commuting.

nb said...

Hi Eric, I agree, that would have been a great idea. I hope they will all find a way to feed off of each other and will have info of surrounding areas at the stops. The recreational user will hopefully be a big part of the equation as we don't have nearly the number of commuters as you guys do.