Posts Tagged ‘public art’
Public Art and Architecture: Creative Subways Around the World
One of my favorite parts about traveling is finding fabulous works of public art and design. I can spend hours walking around cities on the lookout for creative installations, which is why I am a sucker for interesting subway architecture. Stockholm’s subway system happens to be a personal favorite, but there are many other underground systems around the world that make taking public transportation more than just getting from point A to point B.
I pulled together a list of cool subways over at Been Seen, along with a number of photos. The list is long, going from New York all the way to Dubai. Here’s a visual taste:
Check out the full article here.
Recycled Bus Stop
There are some interesting designs when it comes to bus stops around the world, and the Bottlestop Bus Shelter Project is no different. The work of artist Aaron Scales, it’s built from recycled soda bottles (all sources locally), and is lit up at night with LEDs.
More here.
Garbage Bag Art Work
Especially for people who live in urban areas, sometimes it’s easy for us to shut our eyes to all the trash that our society produces; think of all the trash cans you walk by without even noticing. Garbage Bag Art Work is a project that pulls garbage away from its usual habitat — garbage cans and landfills — and negative association and puts it under a more creative light, forcing us to truly look at the problem. Using garbage in this way, the Tokyo-based Garbage Art Work project hopes to encourage more people to look at the waste problem, the environment, and the future of this planet.
An Optical Illusion the Size of a Village
An interesting public art installation in Vercorin, Switzerland by artist Felice Varini that turns the whole village into an optical illusion, by painting white sections on various houses along the hillside.
More at Been Seen.
Guerilla Knitting, Cycle Style
Came across this on my last trip to Stockholm. There are several guerilla knitting groups in Sweden and in the US — it’s a popular form of eco-graffiti — and I always love finding their pieces hidden in the urban landscape.
New York: nature and art together in a major installation
I wish I was in New York to see this insane (and at $15.5 million, pretty expensive) art installation that just formally opened today. The four waterfalls are big — 90 to 120 feet tall — and they churn an incredible amount of water: 35,000 gallons of East River water per minute which makes 2.1 million gallons per hour. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, artist Olafur Eliasson sees Waterfalls as making nature tangible to people, an imperative task in a world where the use and preservation of natural resources is an on-going discussion. Combining nature and art… in my opinion, always an impressive statement.
Read more in the New York Times article.
[Photo via NYTimes]
