Saturday, April 30, 2011
Hows About A Little Downtown Public Art Tour? Status: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
About the only piece of public art that most folks know about in St. Louis is the Gateway Arch. It is a beautiful piece of iconic sculpture that was designed by the noted architect Eero Saarinen. Like most cities and their amazing treasures...we tend to overlook that great big silver thing. Here's some other slightly smaller treasures nearby.
Since it was so amazingly beautiful out this afternoon I decided to take a walking tour of the
Greenway along Market Street. There is a relatively new instalation in the area called City
Garden. It's the perfect place to spend a lovely afternoon downtown! Check it out.
Then just across the street at some big banking building (that looks empty) there are these
three awesome industrial sculptures. They are on loan (to the property I guess) from Laumeier
Sculpture Park in southwest county. I'm embarrassed to say I've never been there...yet.
And just west of the City Garden is (what should be) the world famous "Twain" industrial
installation. This has been a part of St. Louis since 1981 and very few natives seem to
appreciate it. I think it has finally found it's audience. I really think that it's rusty rough cut
nature contrasts beautifully with the new park next door. It doesn't wanna be friends like the
City Garden. It's happy by itself but doesn't mind having company. There's no codependency
to be had here!
There's another new open air public space near work that I like to take my SanSai sushi to
sometimes. They are trying to get a good outdoor "farmers market" going there for the
downtown dwellers. I'm not sure that it's taking off, but it's nice that it's there and they are
trying! Here's a few pics of the artistic stuff there and the new condo built next to it.
This last pic is of a modern sculpture that I've seen for my entire life...seems like. This is on
Washington Avenue just across the street from the Convention Center. I love it.
Labels:
Art,
Brutalist,
Eero Saarinen
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If I ever had an extra say half million or so, I definitely want to live in that new Robert's building! Great pictures.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is terrific and so are these pictures. I've visited St. Louis a couple of times and like it very much. Saw the giant Vess bottle on the way in from the airport and thought I was hallucinating (and I was fine with that).
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