SEGD VOICES
Large scale art as city branding
Utah’s natural wonders are brought indoors at the Salt Lake City International Airport
Summary Cities, corporations, and other organizations are increasingly integrating large-scale artworks into their development projects in an effort to prioritize the customer experience. A latest example at the Salt Lake City International Airport (#TheNewSLC) is the subject of this SEGDVoices. Artist Gordon Huether and Bruce Dickinson of Rainier Industries will discuss the journey from inspiration to finished design for Gordon’s monumental works in the new airport, a major installation that creates both a strong identity and a sense of place for this highly public space. Early in the redevelopment process, the Salt Lake City Department of Airports asked for community input.
The theme of Utah’s world-renown natural beauty emerged prompting city and airport executives to commission Gordon Huether to create several structurally integrated art installations into the re-designed airport. Chief among these works, “The Canyon” is Huether’s largest installation there. It mimics the beautifully smooth, undulating forms of Utah’s “slot canyon” landscape, and helps to define and enhance the passenger experience. Fabricated in partnership with Fabritec Structures and Rainier Industries, the monumental work roughly spans the length of a football field, and incorporates more than two acres of composite fabric, and the equivalent of seven miles of aluminum tubing. The entire work consists of over 500 individual tensile membrane fins. In this SEGDVoices, you will hear about the opportunities, challenges, creative process, and work involved in the development of this public placemaking that defines one of the U.S. newest, and most advanced airports.
The New SLC REBUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
Building a new airport is a massive undertaking, but the end result was well worth the effort. Prior to opening The New SLC, Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) served more than 26 million passengers a year from facilities that were designed 50 years ago, which were intended to serve half as many travelers. A lot has changed since the early 1960s. SLC has grown into a hub airport, with many flights arriving and leaving around the same time. Security needs have evolved, and there is a need for buildings that meet earthquake safety standards. SLC's former facilities served the community well, but it’s about time for us to make way for the next generation of airport design.
Bruce Dickinson
Rainer Industries
Bruce Dickinson is a Vice President at Rainier in Seattle Washington. Rainier creates winning results for their clients through hard work, innovative thinking and a strong team. As specialized builders with all in house capabilities Rainier partners with design & marketing firms on projects worldwide. Rainier has a broad experiencein all aspects of display build, print and interactive AV fabrication. The company has a focus on interior and exterior branded sports, exhibits, mobile experiential and retail environments. They create visually stunning environments. Bruce Dickinson is responsible for company wide sales growth across a diverse product offering. He develops and implements sales and marketing strategies to fit a broad product and client base. Bruce Dickinson also manages creative and operations teams to assure project success.Rainier is a state-of-theart international fabricator of innovative solutions for retail, corporate & sports environments. The company’s work is visible in over one hundred professional and collegiate sports facilities, as well as major retail chains, and the three Olympic Games.
River Tunnel Gordon’s installation, River Tunnel, is his most recent contribution to the Airport Redevelopment Program. Inspired by the beauty of Utah, as his other installations are, this installation reflects the rivers that flow through Utah’s canyons and is featured in the 1,000-foot long Central Tunnel that connects travelers from the main terminal to the north concourse. Stakeholders from the Salt Lake City Department of Airports sought an art installation in the Central Tunnel that would visually link the art features in the main terminal and the north concourse, creating a cohesive, congruous experience for their patrons. Gordon’s River Tunnel installation draws from the theme of his earlier installations, The Canyon and Canyon 2.0, providing a holistic experience for airport travelers. Hung along the ceiling of the tunnel, River Tunnel will be fabricated in the same fashion as The Canyon: a membrane sculpture made up of individual “fins” that have an aluminum frame, wrapped with Tweave Duratech® 570C fabric material and enclosed with a zipper along the back spine. LED lighting will be projected onto the fins in various blue tones, and sound will be incorporated, in order to complete the river effect of this installation. Gordon Huether Studio is responsible for all lighting and sound features in the Central Tunnel. Anticipated installation date for River Tunnel is in 2024.
Gordon Huether
Artist
Gordon Huether was born in Rochester, NY in 1959, to German immigrant parents. Having dual citizenship in Germany and the U.S., Huether has spent much time traveling between both countries. Huether learned art composition and appreciation at an early age from his father. In the course of his initial artistic explorations, Huether was resolved to create a lasting impact on the world around him through the creation of large-scale works of art. He took a deliberate step towards this goal in 1987 when Huether founded his studio in Napa, California. In 1989 Huether was awarded his first public art commission for the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute. Given the opportunity to collaborate with a building design and construction team, allowed Gordon to realize what he envisioned, and proved to be a significant step for him. His careful consideration of the artwork or installation in context to the space and its users has led to many major public art awards around the globe. Projects have included art installations for private corporations, airports, transportation centers, parking garages, hotels, universities, hospitals, recreation centers, civic buildings, libraries, and museums. During his frequent visits to Germany in the early 1990s, Huether’s aesthetic vision took an important turn, which was influenced by Professor Johannes Schreiter. While the medium of glass had initially inspired Huether’s material impulses, Schreiter’s work inspired him to unlock and express vital ideas and humanistic passion in his own work. Huether began to concentrate on the intellectual and emotional message one can deliver through an artistic creation. His work became about communicating a story, not just creating objects of beauty.
In recent years, Gordon has begun exploring different media to challenge both the concept and direction he has taken in the creation of his smaller-scale fine artworks. This personal and professional exploration has given insight to the myriad of ways he can express the beauty he sees. Using the seductive properties of richly saturated color, a wide array of natural and artificial light sources, and diverse texture, found materials and quirky, sometimes unsettling imagery, his work offers viewers a complex and detailed experience. His experience in the realm of large-scale artwork generated the confidence to fashion fine art pieces with very personal content. Huether started experimenting with salvaged materials, found objects and in contrast to these elements, items of polished and impeccable nature. While his core skills are in glass design.
Huether also has extensive experience in working with many other media including steel, repurposing salvaged materials, resins and composite materials. Until this day, much of his work is inspired by the effects nature has on man-made materials such as the rusty patterns present in deteriorating metal. These materials, translated into works of art, serve as a reminder of the temporal character of man’s achievements and the awe-inspiring forces of nature in his opinion and life experiences. Huether’s work has been exhibited at museums and galleries, and collected across the United States, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. He has received more than 70 public art commissions and more than 175 private commissions.
The Canyon Thinking on the way canyons are formed – over millions of years with rock slowly removed by water and air – challenges one’s perspective of time and space; a concept that poetically balances the typical rush of an airport environment. After visiting the canyons in Utah, Gordon was struck by this notion and the way light affected the weathered rock formations. The color variations and shadows, as well as the shapes and striations of the rocks influenced his design for the East and West walls of the new terminal – an area that the airport’s architecture firm, HOK, was already referring to as “the canyon”. True to its name, the new terminal resembles the shape of a canyon in that it begins with a vast open space, pinches in the middle, and opens up again. To enhance the canyon-like architectural features of the new terminal, Gordon incorporated artistic designs that would bring the beauty of Utah’s canyon landscape indoors in an abstract way. Mimicking the beautifully smooth, undulating forms of canyon walls, The Canyon, Gordon’s largest installation at the airport, will span over 362 feet in length and is comprised of over 500 individual tensile membrane fins. Construction of the fins will consist of an aluminum frame, wrapped with a membrane skin consisting of a Tweave Duratech® 570C fabric material and enclosed with a zipper along the back spine. To bring these fins to life, Gordon Huether Studio partnered with FabriTec Structures, LLC, North America’s leading design/build contractor specializing in tension fabric structures, and Rainier Industries to ensure outstanding craftsmanship. Fabrication of this installation is complete with an anticipated installation date of September 2020.