Stage One -Shortlisted Entry

We propose to claim the ‘stage and canopy’ as described in the Forrest Place Masterplan, and replace it with the sculpture - to create a bold and confident, integrated artwork at an urban scale, that would signify the northern gateway to Forrest Place and be the identifiable landmark of the space, as city gate, monument and stage.

We believe that the proposed stage and canopy element identified in the Master Plan is of a scale and location that would enable it to be the identifying feature of the space. However, in it’s current form, the stage and canopy will reduce the visibility and dramatic opportunity of an artwork situated in front of it by contributing to the ‘visual clutter’ the Masterplan aims to remove.

The concept design for the artwork references the typology of the arch and it’s historic and contemporary precedent in an urban context as a monument, city gate, frame, portal, canopy and landmark, and the proscenium arch, which evokes the theatre and stage. By referencing a form with historical precedent it is possible to enhance the legibility of the artwork in the public realm, even a contemporary vision of the form.

Stage One -Shortlisted Entry

We propose to claim the ‘stage and canopy’ as described in the Forrest Place Masterplan, and replace it with the sculpture - to create a bold and confident, integrated artwork at an urban scale, that would signify the northern gateway to Forrest Place and be the identifiable landmark of the space, as city gate, monument and stage.

We believe that the proposed stage and canopy element identified in the Master Plan is of a scale and location that would enable it to be the identifying feature of the space. However, in it’s current form, the stage and canopy will reduce the visibility and dramatic opportunity of an artwork situated in front of it by contributing to the ‘visual clutter’ the Masterplan aims to remove.

The concept design for the artwork references the typology of the arch and it’s historic and contemporary precedent in an urban context as a monument, city gate, frame, portal, canopy and landmark, and the proscenium arch, which evokes the theatre and stage. By referencing a form with historical precedent it is possible to enhance the legibility of the artwork in the public realm, even a contemporary vision of the form.

Stage two:

Folding. Mapping. Surveying.

The poetic image of the unfolded map was the starting point for the development of our concept, as a monument to John Forrest, the story of the unexplored West Australian landscape and it’s surrender to the surveyor’s grid. The concept of journey is expressed in terms of Forrest’s explorations in a historical context and also in a contemporary sense acknowledging the journey of people moving through the city, and the notion of landmark as an important feature for way finding in an urban setting.

The surface image of the sculpture is derived from an aerial photograph of the landscape near Laverton surveyed by Forrest on one of his expeditions, this is juxtaposed against a square structural grid that references the surveyor’s system of latitude and longitude for mapping and locating landmarks. The grid can also be seen as the fold lines of a map that has been folded and unfolded leaving pronounced creases.

International Sculpure Competition
City of Perth
2009

Award
Stage 0ne: shortlisted entry - 2009