Serra art planned for Broad Center

As the Broad Center for the Biological Sciences nears completion, attention is turning to the expanse of ground to the south, along Wilson Avenue—the site of a proposed artwork by renowned sculptor Richard Serra.

Entitled Vectors, the sculpture will consist of four steel plates, each three inches thick and sixty feet long, which will join together and fall diagonally across the lawn, following its slope from the northeast to the southwest corner.

Serra has a tradition of similar landscape pieces dating back to the Pulitzer Piece in St. Louis (1970–71); Shift, a sculpture in King City, Ontario (1970–72); and Schunnemunk Fork, at the Storm King Art Center in New York (1991). Each work is created in relation to the natural features of the surrounding environment.

Vectors will be commissioned in accordance with Caltech’s involvement in the city of Pasadena’s Art in Public Places program, says Robert Rosenstone, professor of history and chair of the Institute Art Committee, an advisory board to President Baltimore. “As part of the program, the Institute has a clause in its master plan stipulating that academic and administrative buildings over a certain size must have one percent of their construction costs dedicated to public art,” Rosenstone says, noting that a minimum number of artists must be considered, preferably including some local ones. Additional funding for Vectors is being raised from private donations.

According to Hall Daily, assistant vice president and director of government and community relations, “Caltech is required to take specific steps to meet the public art requirement, and the plan is to present the Broad Center proposal to the Arts Commission for review in July.” The center is the second campus building to have qualified; the first was Moore Laboratory, and its associated artwork is Moore’s Stone Volute by Lloyd Hamrol, the circular sculpture west of Beckman Laboratories.
The art committee, comprising faculty and staff members, began the selection process in September 2000, when it gave a list of proposed artists to Pasadena’s Arts Commission. Over time, the committee agreed on the proposal by Serra, whom the New York Times has called “the greatest living sculptor.”

Rosenstone predicts that Vectors will become a landmark—a site for weddings and more. “I greatly admire the prospective work—I think it’s heroic. It will add tension and dynamism to a lawn that’s a big blank space that says nothing. Serra will make our experience of the space much more interesting.”

Contrary to popular belief, the lawn was not part of the Beckman Institute (BI) bequeathal by Arnold and Mabel Beckman, says Physical Plant director Bill Irwin. “It was always Caltech land, and was originally reserved in the master plan as a future academic building site, with the current Physical Plant site to be open space. However, due to the desire to keep the BI lawn open space, and to concern over future Physical Plant site requirements, Caltech asked the city of Pasadena to exchange the open space, and in August 1999, the city approved an amended master plan with the BI lawn as open space.” The area has at various times been covered by trees and buildings; a parking lot; and, during the BI construction, a dirt mound.

A discussion on public art, Serra, and the proposed sculpture is scheduled for Tuesday, May 21, at noon in Beckman Auditorium, moderated by Rosenstone and featuring Caltech conceptual artist and art committee consultant David Kremers. In addition, a model of Vectors will be on display at Beckman Institute from May 16 to 30, and at the bookstore until June 21. An informational Web site is also available at http://pr.caltech.edu/events/serra/. Comments can be submitted on the site through May 31.

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Richard Serra comments on Vectors

The title Vectors literally describes essential formal aspects of the sculpture. It signifies the work’s directionality and velocity in a straight line as it steps from one extremity to the next.

I have structured the slope to fall diagonally from the highest elevation (the corner between the Broad Center and the Beckman Institute) fairly regularly to the lowest elevation (the southwest corner at Wilson Avenue). The land slopes 10 feet over 350 feet. Taking the four corners as elevation benchmarks, I have further sloped the site more subtly along its perimeters. Without changing the topology, I have thus transformed the site into a gently rolling field.

The field is structured at 2’3” contour intervals and each element is placed wherever the quickest fall in elevation occurs. I determined that the land would fall 2’3” over a distance of 60’. Accordingly, the four 60’ long plates rise in progression from 0 to 2’3”, from 2’3” to 4’6”, from 4’6” to 6’9”, and from 6’9” to 9’; they adjoin where the direction of the fall of the land changes. What is singular about this work is the logic built into the progression of the stepped elevation.

I chose the 2’3” drop in elevation because the resulting location of the four plates offered the most comprehensive reading of the site. The top edges of the plates establish a continuously shifting horizon. Whether one is walking around the perimeter or across the site, the shifting horizon lines give measure not only to the landscape elevation but also to the architectural urban context, functioning as visual barometers.

As one drives along or walks the site, the sculptural configuration foreshortens and extends, compresses and expands the entire field and its urban surroundings, continuously redrawing the viewer’s relationship to the landscape and the architecture. Approaching the field either from the Beckman Institute or Broad Center, the entire sculpture is below grade of both buildings with clear view across the entire landscape; approaching the sculpture from Wilson Avenue, the top edge of each plate offers a perspective line into the architecture.

In trying to conceive this work, the choice was one of sculptural object versus sculpturally structured field. I opted for the latter because I believe that given the complexity of this particular context in its singular mix of landscape and urban elements, shaping the viewer’s response to the entire context was the most demanding challenge.

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