Downtown ASU students walk by the construction every day. They see the large blue rings hanging in the sky and the signs around the fence that label it the Civic Space Park, though most are unsure what the structure will be.
The City of Phoenix has joined with ASU to construct a park for students and the public. The development, scheduled to open in March, rests on 2.7 acres between North Central and North First avenues and East Polk and East Fillmore streets, across from the University Center and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The space will include a sloped lawn area, an urban plaza, water features for children and patio space. An additional annex structure for ASU will eventually be built as well, according to the city’s Parks Development and Improvement Projects’ Web site.
So far, the feature that has drawn the most attention is the large art sculpture hanging above the park.
“They refer to [the art] as the floating jellyfish,” Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture spokeswoman Joyce Valdez said.
The artwork, designed by Janet Echelman of New York, will hang about 50 feet off of the ground on steel rings, cables and poles. It will be approximately 60 feet tall and 98 feet wide at the top, according to the Office of Arts and Culture’s Web site.
Along with the steel tubing that is already placed in the park, the structure will have flexible netting that will sway in the breeze.
The netting will be made of a durable type of polyester, expected to last 20 years through any weather conditions, according to the Web site.
In addition, different lights, colored to change gradually with the seasons, will be used at night to color the sculpture.
“This clearly was an opportunity to do something monumental,” said Phil Jones, executive director of the Office of Arts and Culture.
The artwork will cost a about $2.5 million, paid for by the city’s art fund, and should be finished in early January, Jones said.
Aside from the art sculpture, the entire Civic Space Project will cost $30 million. Voters approved funding in the 2006 bond.
“We as a city really don’t have any kind of iconic exterior piece of public art as do other cities,” Jones said, citing the Cloud Gate in Chicago, a large elliptical sculpture made of stainless steel.
The art in the Civic Space Park is not the first large piece in the city, though. The Phoenix Convention Center is home to a 110-foot mirror. Echelman’s work, however, will be the first grand, exterior sculpture piece in the city, Jones said.
“Not everybody goes to the Convention Center,” Jones said. “[The new structure] will draw people downtown and draw attention to the community.”
Reach the reporter at jolie.mccullough@asu.edu.
