Transbay Transit Center Art Program: Transformative Power of Public Art The Role of Art in San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center

摘要

The Transbay Transit Center will be a state-of-the-art multimodal transit station in downtown SanFrancisco, linking 11 transit systems and connecting the city to the region, the state, and the nation. Aspart of the project, which opens in 2017, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) has commissionedfour major artworks—by the artists Julie Chang, Jenny Holzer, Ned Kahn, and James Carpenter—thatwill be integrated with the building’s design. Currently in development, each piece will emerge from aclose collaboration between the artists and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the Transit Center’s architect,blurring the line between art and architecture and making both more accessible to the general public.Working together, the building design and the large-scale artworks will help to shape the character of anew mixed-use neighborhood around the Transit Center through meaningful references to San Francisco’shistory, culture, architectural heritage, and natural environment. This paper describes Transbay TransitCenter’s unique mission—to both provide a highly functional transportation facility and contribute to thesocial and cultural life of San Francisco—and discusses the role of its art program in this effort.