Introduction
Photo: Max Pixel
Licensed By: CC0
Like many of you, I live in a city where there is scarcely a square metre of land that some architect, planner or designer hasn’t tampered with – sometimes with spectacular results, other times, not. Significantly, we are rarely asked about these intrusions. They just happen.
Public art is an important exception to this state of affairs – a way of improving our lives by creating meaningful forms and spaces and, in many municipalities, asking for our opinion about it (or the opinion of our representatives). Through public art, we get to feel the environment and engage with it in a way that is personal and meaningful.
In the essays that follow, a number of contributors discuss environmental art: art in public spaces, art in communal spaces, art applied to architecture, and artwork inspired by architecture and landscapes.
Carved in Stone
The story of Louis Temporale, once described as Canada’s leading stone carver, and the Ontario tradition that made sculpture part of the building itself.
Art and Architecture – A Personal Journey
From would-be ballerina to architect to full-time artist: how McGill drawing classes under Gentile Tondino shaped a double life in art and architecture.
Art, Architecture and the City – Symbiosis Through Public Art
Museums isolate art for the initiated few, but public art meets everyone on the street: how art, architecture and the city complete each other.
Efficient Art + Architecture in a Seniors’ Social Housing Project
A line item for ‘special wall treatment’ smuggled an art budget into a modest seniors’ housing project; twenty-five years later, the wool hangings still lift the building out of the ordinary.
Experiential Art & Architecture
Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid and three Toronto water nymphs show how similar sculptures can create radically different stories, places and public experiences.
UX and Architecture User Experience vs. “Being Interesting”
Apple Park’s unhappy employees make the case: architecture is too often judged on being interesting rather than on how it feels to occupy.
The City: Listening to the Street
A wise Montrealer on a Rue St. Denis patio said it best: listen to the street. On learning that city building is about people, not bricks and mortar.