WORD LANDSCAPES

Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center, Philadelphia PA

The artwork consists of a strip of type along the face of the benches directly below the seat. The type is five inches high running the the full 18 feet of each bench. It will be etched directly into the building material, which is pre-cast stone that comes in nine inch by three foot wide panels, six panels per bench (see illustration). The panels will be supplied as part of the regular building materials.

Each strip is a group of words describing a beautiful or idyllic natural environment. They are word-landscapes. There are two different landscapes- a mountain setting and an ocean setting. These two versions are repeated alternately throughout the courtroom hallways.

The benches are 18 feet long, 18 inches deep,and are meant to seat 10 to 14 people each.They run along the courtroom hallways on the 4th through the 11th floor of the center. There are 60 benches (4 on the 4th floor, and 8 each on the rest).

This artwork is meant to be seen both as a happy distraction for those people who may need one, and as a humorous twist on the traditional decorative role of landscape genre painting.

commissioned by the City of Philadelphia
facilitated by the Office of Arts and Culture, Philadelphia PA
completed 1995