The Broad Street Avenue of the Arts makeover project, which broke ground in January, is inching its way into completion.
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The remaking of the median on South Broad Street in front of the Kimmel Center, part of the larger AveArts 2.0 project, will now include the installation of a pair of sculptures by artist Miguel Horn. The South Philly-based artist, who is behind several public sculptures in the city including Center City’s ContraFuerte, sought approval for the sculptures’ concept review in a Philadelphia Art Commission meeting on Wednesday.
The new sculptures are scheduled to be installed this fall and remain in place for five years.
The larger Broad Street renovation project involves reconstructing the median into a raised planter, adding landscaping, restoring pavement, and installing pedestals and lighting for the public art. AveArts 2.0 was supposed to begin construction on the median in January and wrap up this month, but has since been delayed until the fall.
Made of bright yellow powder coated steel, Horn’s sculptures will display a blurred image of moving pedestrians. The concept for the design, Horn said, came from him making Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) scans of buildings around Philadelphia. He began to notice something interesting when people walked in front of the scanner.
“This section of the Reading Terminal Market at Filbert Street was flooded with pedestrians walking by, and these movements of pedestrians across this space created this tapestry of figurative elements, abstraction, and I just fell in love,” Horn said in the meeting as he presented his artistic concept.
He then proceeded to go through the scans and select different movements to create the final sculpture design of walking pedestrians.
“This Muybridge-like study of movement for me was the most compelling thing sculpturally I’ve seen rendered on a computer screen in years,” he said, referring to Edwin Muybridge, the pioneering photographer best known for creating The Horse in Motion (1878).
Horn’s design did raise some concerns among attendees on Wednesday, including concerns about potential driving sight line blockages brought on by the sculptures.
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In the meeting, he assured that there was no concern for safety. His presentation to the Arts Commission claimed that the sculptures would still allow for a 215-feet sightline of incoming traffic while driving on either side of the median.
“There will not be an interruption to any visual sight lines,” he said.
Design Advocacy Group (DAG) vice-chair David Brownlee, who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, considers planting trees in the median impractical.
“No one has ever said to me that the problem with Broad Street is there’s no shade in the middle of the street,” he said. “Or that’s the problem with Broad Street is you get out of the street and you look up and see that tower of City Hall.”
Rather than placing trees and sculptures in the middle of the road, Brownlee suggested the widening of sidewalks and installing art on each side so pedestrians can view them while walking.
Horn’s concept review for the sculptures was subsequently approved by the Arts Commission, with a final review expected at a later date.
The AveArts 2.0 project aims to beautify Avenue of the Arts into a cohesive streetscape. The plan is to renovate all blocks between City Hall and Washington Ave. with a cost of $15 million per block.
“I find this to be a reclamation of our public space through this figurative artwork,” Horn said. “I’m constantly trying to find opportunities to bring the human experience to the forefront of these public spaces.”
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