Promenade by Matt Gil
Palo Alto, California
SLATE Art Consulting worked with Wilson Meany, a premier Bay Area development company, to curate and deliver this sculpture to a new-construction project in Palo Alto earlier this year. The building sits at the border between the commercial and residential areas near downtown, and itself combines office space with residential apartment living.
The architects at Aidlin Darling Design designed the building, including open breeze-ways underneath to lighten and lift up the mass. This presented an opportunity for placing a free-standing sculpture in the space below.
SLATE reviewed various styles of sculpture with the stakeholders, including the developers, owners, and Palo Alto's Public Art Commission. Interest built around the work of San Francisco sculptor Matt Gil. At a studio visit with the artist that included the architect and developer's project manager, a modest concrete garden sculpture caught their eye, which became the nucleus for Promenade.
Gil submitted several designs based on this piece, and he continued to refine them in dialogue with the commissioning team. Eventually, a design was agreed upon that:
added an organic curvilinear approach to counterbalance the rectilinear shapes in the architecture,
finished in a light color to stand proud from the shadowy recess behind,
was equally compelling from the street and interior sides,
brought a sense of humanity and connection to both memorialize past residents and invite new residents to feel at home.
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Next, Gil produced a 10" maquette (mini model) of the final sculpture design, which was used to test surface colors and serve as a reference for the artist as he built the fully-scaled project in his Bayview sculpture yard.
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One advantage of working with an architecture team early in the process was that foundations for the sculpture could be engineered for the art -- especially since it was a 1500 lb sculpture; and underneath was not solid ground but, rather, a hollow parking garage. SLATE also visited the site with the artist before the concrete floor was poured to check the site-lines for the art and to work with the general contractor to make sure that the placement of the anchoring bolts was correct.
While the building was being erected, Gil built the sculpture. It involved many steps, including welding a metal structure, having it galvanized, filling it, and then working the exterior stucco/concrete surface by hand.
Finally, it was time to deliver and install. SLATE contracted the highly-skilled problem-solving team run by Andrew Bigler at Connect Art International, who worked closely with the artist to engineer a lateral delivery into the space with a vertical placement on receiving bolts.
Today, the finished artwork is settling in -- settling with the plants and grasses still growing around it and settling into the neighborhood, making friends and waving hello to passersby, reminding them to enjoy their own promenade.
Promenade
Palo Alto | Artist: Matt Gil (2022)
Photography by Henrik Kam
