Metro’s Arts & Design group has been working on two recently completed projects adjacent to Union Station, the Cesar Chavez Transit Pavilion and the Patsaouras Plaza Busway Station. Each project represents how closely Arts & Design works with our Program Management team, Countywide Planning, consultants and contractors to help deliver better customer experiences for a range of transit environments.
Cesar Chavez Transit Pavilion with shade canopies and landscaping
Key components of the FTA Ladders of Opportunity Grant-funded and Gensler-designed Cesar Chavez Transit Pavilion, located to the east of Patsaouras Plaza, are the crisp, bold graphic designs developed by Metro Arts & Design.
These graphics not only provide clear identification, wayfinding and transit information for bus riders, but also help signify the arrival of a new Metro Bike hub that connects the entire Union Station campus with convenient bike share access.
The graphics utilize simple, economical means – painted aluminum panels affixed to an existing wall with external lighting – to achieve a balance between the pavilion’s modern architecture and Historic Union Station’s more traditional environmental graphic design palette. (The original graphics for the Union Station campus were developed in 2013 by Selbert Perkins Design).
The new Patsaouras Plaza Busway Station is a transit busway station south of Patsaouras Transit Plaza, in the median of the El Monte Busway next to US-101, servicing the Metro J Line (Silver) and other transit buses operating on the El Monte Busway. The most notable project improvement is the new 750 ft long pedestrian bridge that directly connects the Patsaouras Plaza Busway Station to the East Portal of Union Station. This project embodies over ten (10) years of project engineer collaboration with internationally renowned California artist Ned Kahn to realize Wind Bridge. The structure utilizes hinged perforated stainless-steel panels that swing to reveal subtle, rippling moiré patterns of light and shade. This enclosure also creates the impression of a cocoon providing a safe pedestrian respite from the vehicular traffic flanking each side. These patterns—depicted in the video below— shift as light fluctuates throughout the day, and at night reveal themselves as silhouettes against illuminated surfaces inside the bridge.
Click here for a video featuring Wind Bridge and more about the new Patsaouras Plaza Busway Station.
Click here to read more about the Cesar Chavez Transit Pavilion.
Click here for more information about Metro’s art program. You can also follow Metro Art on Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Categories: Bike Share, Inside Metro, Metro Art, Transportation News
Wow…seriously. This is what passes for art. A long grey corridor. Come on!