Engineering sophomore Deeksha Gulati was walking along 40th Street when she encountered a metal fence, three tractor-trailers and a pile of brick rubble. She assumed the evidence of construction was an extension of the landscaping project at 39th and Locust Walk and crossed the street.
"It's inconvenient because you have to come into the middle of the street because the project just ends there," she said.
In fact, Gulati had stumbled upon the beginning stages of artist Andrea Blum's sculpture "Plateau."
The work is part of the University's participation in the city's Percent for Art Program, which mandates that 1 percent of the cost of construction on redeveloped land be dedicated to public art. There are no space requirements, however.
Gulati is not the only Penn student to have been unaware of the new project. A lack of signage and communication has led many students to draw their own inferences as to what exactly is happening at the site.
"We should all have done a better job in communicating what this project is about," Senior Vice President of Facilities and Real Estate Services Omar Blaik said. He added that measures will be taken to address the problem.
Perhaps poor publicity should not take all the blame, however.
Although public art projects generally occur at the same time as construction on redeveloped land, the artwork at 40th and Locust streets stems from Penn's redevelopment of the Inn at Penn complex in 1999. One percent of construction funds from the project were put into an escrow account because the University and the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia could not agree on the specifics of the artwork and its location.
"The site is unusual because it is not related to any building project," said Susan Davis, director of public art programs for the RDA. However, she added that the work is site-specific because Blum spent a lot of time analyzing the location before commencing with her piece.
"You figure out a visual language for what's appropriate for the situation, to conjoin the campus and the surrounding area," Blum said.
Currently, work focuses on removing the existing brick columns along the 40th Street perimeter of the site and laying the electrical and drainage systems. The actual piece is scheduled for shipment from France on Oct. 31.
Blum's fabricator, with whom she has worked on previous projects, lives in France.
Blum described the sculpture as having a layer-cake effect. The medium consists of perforated steel, concrete and landscape material, topped by layers of benches and tables.
"It's like a big puzzle that splits apart, and in splitting apart, some become more massive structures, some remain on a horizontal plane," Blum said. When complete, the structure will cover about 4,800 square feet.
Located adjacent to the Walnut Street West branch of the Philadelphia Free Library and in the vicinity of the three high-rise dormitories and many stores, the site sees much traffic, so "Plateau" will have both aesthetic and practical attributes.
"It's not an art project that is passive," Blaik said. "You can sit on it and eat on it."
Laurie Olin, practice professor of landscape architecture, said that the artwork's location in the heart of a vibrant community will allow people to derive aesthetic pleasure from it while utilizing it as a boundary, as well.
"We need something to separate the informal play field from the streets and sidewalk so the games don't end up in the street and the streets don't end up in the games," he said.
