7th/Metro Center Station
Plantings, 2002
Kipp Kobayashi, Marta Perlas, Noel Korten,artists
The artist team has created seating environments that produce a strong visual and functional experience for Metro Rail users. The artist team was strongly influenced by the interior of the Fine Arts Building, located directly above the Metro Center Station. The lobby of the Fine Arts building features the tilework of Ernest A. Batchelder, an important figure of the arts and crafts movement. Batchelder incorporated botanical forms as adornment in his tilework, often referencing nature as symbolic shapes. The artist team incorporated patterned organic forms onto their seating design.
Durable lightweight concrete seats made up of 3’x 3’ squares, are subdivided into 18” by 18” cubes. These 3’ by 3’ cubes are arranged to produce a branching ‘Y’ pattern suggestive of plants and trees. The seats are influence after Froebel kindergarten materials, whose process is based on primary forms that relate to one another in a fixed proportional ratio. Etched or cast in low relief on the tops of the seating cubes are shapes influenced from those that exist in the tilework of the Fine Arts Building. Using lighting elements from above (architectural ellipse features), the effect is a series of projected foliage patterns within the seating area.
“We have named this project “Plantings” in reference to its symbolic growth from the abstract patterns and stylized shapes of tilemaker Ernest A. Batchelder to the illusionistic presence of actual trees. Our hope is that when integrated into the station, this design will visually impact the space as a whole and to create a unique and dramatic identity that will indelibly enhance the character of the Metro Station.”