Douglas/Rosecrans Station
Untitled, 1995
Renee Petropoulos, artist
Escudero-Fribourg Architects
Renée Petropoulos explores the notion of a location's identifying landmarks. In this station, large vibrantly-colored medallions, or shields, reflect the neighborhood's industrial landscape and complex machinery, and transform the station into a bold landmark. A sculptural air-ventilator tower circles above the station while the girders supporting the canopy resemble crisscrossing electrical towers. Benches are reminiscent of industrial tools and gears.
Passengers can explore the idea of location as they are engulfed by conjugations of the verb "to be"; subtle area maps incorporated into the station platform and stairwells include the names of people who worked on the station's construction. At the plaza level, a complex and colorful terrazzo paving pattern greets passengers. Fragments of private conversations are embossed into the concrete stair risers, interjecting the intimacy of private space into this very public location.
The act of viewing is conceptualized throughout the station: handrails house eyes, silkscreened on the elevator glass frames both the viewer and the landscape, and viewing tubes locate various landmarks in the area while simultaneously allowing passengers to focus in on one another.
This project was funded in part by Continental Development Corporation.
"People who use this station are daily commuters who work in this area. I wanted the various aspects of this station to reveal themselves over time, for the station to be experienced as a giant art piece in which the understanding of the whole is reached through daily encounters with each of its elements. I chose to focus on the idea of location—places that identify you in terms of where you are in the city, in the country, in the world—including psychological location. I wanted to pose some questions about monuments or markers as identifiers, including seeing the station as a possible landmark."