This is the type of debate that the AAPAC should have engaged in before making any decision.

Unfortunately, this was a decision made by an elite group chosen by another group of elitists with little input from a community fully prepared and equipped to debate and discuss these kinds of issues. Just another example of how skewed discussion of political, social and cultural issues has become in Ann Arbor.

If there is a blind competition that is open to all and judged on the creative and conceptual merits alone, I pretty much guarantee this design would not be the winner. How inspired is a small trickle of water, some steel, a few LED lights and massive sweeps of concrete? What does that say conceptually about the local area or the region we live in? And what about the inside…a relief map of the Huron River Watershed and engravings of local plants and their extensive root systems? I call “CLICHE”! You would the thrown out of first year design class if you tried something like that. What about bringing some water into the building so it reflects the sun or lights onto the ceiling or the tricle can be heard echoing though the lobby? Something.

His basic concept is always to capture rainwater and recirculate it in an interesting way. Fine. Techically that part is simple. Lots of people could be given this as a design requirement and off we go to open local/regional/US/international artists to be inspired. I still maintain that, even though Margaret seems to be covering her tracks now saying they looked for artists, they essentially commissioned this work. I think it was the wrong approach.

I have been to Tanner Springs Park in Portland that was at least partially designed by Herbert. If we got a Tanner Springs, or even a fraction of it, I would be ecstatic. We did not get a Tanner Springs Park.

There is precious little green open space in downtown and Driesetl’s sculpture will be dwarfed by the buildings around it. Traffic pollution and noise, the Fire Hall won’t help anyone appreciate the what he’s trying to say. What little greenery or water there is in his work (7 months a year) associated with the sculpture wont negate its poor location. Real Big Picture thinking by the AAPAC (political appointees serving the “vision” of their appointers) and the bureaucrats and politicians who hold the purse strings would have been better served by open debate and discussion from a wider group of people including local artists.

DrieseitI’s work would have been better located on the drainage area at the YMCA on Huron or along the proposed nearby Allen Creek Greenway than at city hall. I can better imagine you and your children walking along a greenway that follows the path of the Allen Creek and stopping to experience Driesetl’s work in pleasant surroundings more than I can imagining you crossing Huron to sit at the front door of the Police and Courts building to look at, contemplate, regardless of it’s high concept, what is little more than a modern fountain.

The proposed sculpture is out of place at that location. City Hall is in a dead zone. It has no sense of place and I doubt that a sculpture will make people forget their troubles or reflect on their municipal business in a different way. We have a different and sometimes not so charitable view of government here in the US than Europeans do. City Hall has never been a place where people gather for reflection or socializing. I doubt that a beautiful sculpture will inspire people to sit and reflect regardless of Driesetl’s meaningful concept People will either glimpse the work as they drive by on Huron or 5th or when they attend to their timely public business. Few people actually enjoy going into city hall for much of anything. A work of art, no matter how high minded wont change this.

I’m a firm believer in public art and think the 1% is a good idea, but this sculpture seems to me to be little more than a poorly thought out idea by political appointees in a location unrelated to the artists concept or his previous work. It’s more of a monument to government than it is a piece that makes us think our relationship to the environment.

If there is serious consideration of a Greenway through downtown along the Allen Creek, such a work of art or something similar would have been better located along the Greenway where water is an integral part of our environment. It would have been an attraction along the Greenway and a place for people who seek a green open space in downtown for relaxation or contemplation away from all the concrete and asphalt.

This sculpture at that location is the result of insufficient public input and open debate. It is not the result of “thinking big” by anyone except the artist.

It’s no accident that A2 is remarkably buffered from the economic woes being experienced by the rest of SE Michigan. Ann Arbor is a place where people want to live and companies are attracted to it. Sure the U is a big contributor to this attraction, but so are the forward thinking townies that realize the value of things that are good and beautiful – we know they are necessary as well.
I don’t mind a good witch hunt now and then, let’s see, who can we run out of town now…