Blueprints at Addison Circle

Last updated
Blueprints at Addison Circle
Blueprints at Addison Circle.jpg
Artist Michael Van Valkenburgh and Mel Chin
Year2000
Typesteel
Dimensions13 m× 43 m(43 ft× 140 ft)
Location Addison, Texas
Coordinates 32°57′41″N96°49′33″W / 32.96140°N 96.82594°W / 32.96140; -96.82594

Blueprints at Addison Circle is a steel sculpture located in Addison, Texas officially unveiled on April 13, 2000. [1] It is one of approximately 20 works of public art throughout the town. [2]

Addison Circle and the surrounding area was built in 1997 to create a more traditional walkable urban town center; [3] [4] it is a 133-foot-diameter (41 m) roundabout. The sculpture inside the traffic circle consists of 25 poles and five panels. It weighs 410,000 pounds (190,000 kg) and required 650 US gallons (2,500  L ) of custom "Sharpie blue" paint. [5] The work is more than 4 stories high and 140 feet (43 m) across. It was designed by artist Mel Chin in conjunction with landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh and with the aid of LeMessurier Consultants, and was fabricated and erected by Big D Metalworks of Dallas. The poles weighing 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg) were made in Houston, Texas and the tapered cones at the top of the poles were made in New Jersey. Total cost for the sculpture was $2.1 million. [6] [4] The nighttime lighting was designed by Stephen Bernstein of Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design. [7]

The sculpture is said to resemble the branching pattern of a grove of oak trees. The panels follow a design using actual blueprints from Addison's municipal buildings, parks, bridges, and water pumping facilities. Of the work Chin said “I chose to represent in this the physical representation of blueprints, the infrastructure that you don’t see—and to celebrate the ideas floating above you.” [1]

Addison circle park panorama.jpg
Addison Circle Park Pavilion and Blueprints

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Addison, Texas</span> Town in Texas, United States

Addison is an incorporated town in Dallas County, Texas, United States. Addison is situated to the immediate north of the city of Dallas, with a 2020 census population of 16,661.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bank of America Plaza (Dallas)</span> Skyscraper in downtown Dallas, Texas

Bank of America Plaza is a 72-story, 280.7 m (921 ft) late-modernist skyscraper located in the Main Street District in the city's downtown core in Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the tallest skyscraper in the city, the 3rd tallest in Texas and the 45th tallest in the United States. It contains 1,900,000 sq ft (180,000 m2) of office space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Tex</span> Icon of the annual State Fair of Texas

Big Tex is a 55-foot (17 m) tall figure and marketing icon of the annual State Fair of Texas held at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas, United States. The figure has become a cultural icon of Dallas and Texas. Since 1952, Big Tex has served as a cultural ambassador to visitors, and the figure's prime location in the fairgrounds serves as a traditional meeting point.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reunion Tower</span> Observation tower in Dallas, Texas

Reunion Tower is a 561 ft (171 m) observation tower in Dallas, Texas, United States and one of the city's most recognizable landmarks. The tower is located at 300 Reunion Boulevard in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, which is named after the mid-nineteenth century commune La Reunion. A free-standing structure until the construction of an addition to the Hyatt Regency Dallas and surrounding complex in 1998, the tower is the city's 15th tallest occupiable structure. It was designed by architectural firm Welton Becket & Associates.

Hammering Man is a series of monumental kinetic sculptures by Jonathan Borofsky. The two-dimensional painted steel sculptures were designed at different scales, were painted black, and depict a man with a motorized arm and hammer movement to symbolize workers throughout the world. They were structurally engineered by Leslie E. Robertson Associates (LERA).

Michael Robert Van Valkenburgh is an American landscape architect and educator. He has worked on a wide variety of projects – including public parks, college campuses, sculpture gardens, corporate landscapes, private gardens, and urban master plans – in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. He has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design Since 1982 and served as chair of its Landscape Architecture Department from 1991 to 1996.

<i>Cloud Gate</i> Sculpture by Anish Kapoor in Chicago, US

Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, that is the centerpiece of Grainger Plaza at Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture and Grainger Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is nicknamed "The Bean" because of its shape, a name Kapoor later grew fond of. Kapoor himself even uses this title when referring to his work. Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams. It measures 33 by 66 by 42 feet, and weighs 110 short tons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Addison Airport</span> Public airport in Addison, Dallas County, Texas

Addison Airport is a public airport in Addison, in Dallas County, Texas, United States, 9 mi north of downtown Dallas. It opened in 1954 and was purchased by the town of Addison in 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mel Chin</span> American artist

Mel Chin is a conceptual visual artist. Motivated largely by political, cultural, and social circumstances, Chin works in a variety of art media to calculate meaning in modern life. Chin places art in landscapes, in public spaces, and in gallery and museum exhibitions, but his work is not limited to specific venues. Chin once stated: “Making objects and marks is also about making possibilities, making choices—and that is one of the last freedoms we have. To provide that is one of the functions of art.” His work may be found in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

LeMessurier Consultants is a Boston, Massachusetts firm, founded by William LeMessurier in 1961. It provides engineering support services to architects and construction firms. They focus on advanced structural techniques and impacts to construction materials. They are known for their modular construction techniques including the Mah-LeMessurier System for precast concrete in high-rise housing, the Staggered Truss System for high-rise steel structures, and the tuned mass damper used to reduce tall building motion. One of the best known uses of the damper is the John Hancock Tower in Boston. In addition to new construction, they also work with retrofitting buildings and historic preservation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Addison Transit Center</span> Bus station in Addison, Texas

Addison Transit Center is a bus-only mass transit station located along Arapaho Road in Addison, Texas. It is part of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sesquicentennial Park</span> Park in Texas, United States of America

Sesquicentennial Park is an urban park in downtown Houston, Texas. Established in 1989 along the banks of Buffalo Bayou, the 22.5-acre (91,000 m2) park was established in 1986 to commemorate the 150-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Houston and of the Republic of Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pegasus Plaza</span>

Pegasus Plaza is a public park located in downtown Dallas, Texas. Located at the corner of Akard and Main Street in the Main Street District, the plaza takes its name from Pegasus, the iconic sign atop the adjacent Magnolia Hotel and the mythical flying horse. The shaded plaza includes several fountains and is used for concerts, festivals and Christmas celebrations.

<i>The Calling</i> (di Suvero) Public artwork by Mark di Suvero

The Calling is a public artwork by American artist Mark di Suvero located in O'Donnell Park, which is on the lakefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The artwork was made in 1981-82 from steel I-beams painted an orange-red color. It measures 40 ft (12 m) in height, and it sits at the end of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the footbridge that leads to the Milwaukee Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaboom Town</span>

Kaboom Town is a nationally recognized fireworks show in Addison, Texas that takes place at Addison Circle Park every July 3 to celebrate the Independence of the United States. With over 400,000 visitors and 1,500 pounds of fireworks, it is the largest fireworks display in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The celebration features an air show, sponsored by the city's Cavanaugh Flight Museum and Addison Airport, which includes historic warplanes completing flyovers over the park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Van Alstine</span> American sculptor

John Van Alstine is an American contemporary art sculptor and former assistant professor of fine arts at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and the University of Maryland in College Park where he taught drawing and sculpture. He primarily creates abstract stone and metal sculptures. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the US, as well as Europe and Asia.

<i>Leland I</i> Sculpture in Portland, Oregon

Leland I, sometimes stylized as Leland 1 or Leland #1, is an outdoor 1975 sculpture by Lee Kelly and Bonnie Bronson, installed in Portland, Oregon, United States.

<i>Pillar of Fire</i> (sculpture)

Pillar of Fire is an illuminated glass sculpture in Washington, D.C. honoring Whitman-Walker Health and the healthcare workers who assisted people living with HIV/AIDS during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Designed by artist William Cochran, the sculpture is composed of 370 layers of float glass that changes colors throughout the day. It was installed in 2013 in front of the old Whitman-Walker Clinic site at 14th and S Streets NW. The design was inspired by the ancient tale of a pillar of fire that led Israelites in their crossing of the Red Sea and through the desert after they fled Egypt.

<i>The Traveling Man</i> Series of metal sculptures depicting robots and birds in Dallas

The Traveling Man is a series of three metal sculptures depicting robots accompanied by birds in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of Dallas. Made of brushed and polished sheets of stainless steel held together with rivets, the sculptures were a collaboration between sculptor Brad Oldham and Brandon Oldenburg of Reel FX Creative Studios. They are intended to be evocative of both the history of rail transportation in Deep Ellum and its more recent development as an artistic community.

References

  1. 1 2 Emam, Hoda. "6 Ways to Absorb Addison, Texas' Arts and Culture". Atlas Obscura.
  2. "Addison is a small town big on public art". Dallas News. August 9, 2022. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  3. "Addison Circle". SAH ARCHIPEDIA. February 2, 2023.
  4. 1 2 "Mel Chin and Michael Van Valkenburgh: Blueprints at Addison Circle, Addison, Texas". Sculpture . December 2000. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 5 January 2024 via Wikipedia Library (paywall).
  5. "The "Blueprints" steel sculpture in Addison Circle, an urban park in Addison, Texas, a Dallas suburb". Library of Congress. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  6. "Masterpiece of the month: 'Blueprints' at Addison Circle". The Dallas Morning News . 29 June 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
  7. Liao, Alice "Blueprint Special" Architectural Lighting Magazine, April 2, 2002