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From playful sculptures to vivid murals to numerous nods to local history, Redwood City’s Elco Yards’ public art program was curated with an aim to add colorful, meaningful touches to the mixed-use development.
Heather Marx is the art advisor for the public art program at Elco Yards, a former industrial site spanning five city blocks and currently including public site-specific 11 artworks. She joined the project in 2019, before construction had begun, and worked closely over the years with the developer IQHQ, architecture firm WRNS Studio and landscape architecture firm SWA, as well as with the city’s art commission.
The vision for the development is to have a “neighborhood” look and feel, Marx said, so part of her task was to select and commission pieces that complement the variety of architecture and mixed uses of the buildings and common areas while also relating well to each other and representing the city of which it’s a part.
“You’ll notice each building has different surfaces and textures, and they’re responding to the sort of industrial past of Redwood City, and so we wanted the art to have that diversity, too,” she said, with pieces incorporating references to Redwood City’s past as well as reflecting its present.
Marx, who currently heads Heather Marx Art Advisory and previously founded and ran Heather Marx Gallery (then renamed Marx & Zavattero) in San Francisco, has decades of experience in curation and working with artists, organizations and community groups, in addition to private clients.
“We wanted to make it energetic, playful, (and) have surprises,” she said of the Elco Yards project.
Near the Main Street Agility Dog Park (which was also upgraded as part of the development) are two bright blue sculptures by artist Nathan Mabry, collectively titled Everything is Connected.The work’s title refers not only to how the two parts of the sculptural installation are connected but also connection on a broader, deeper scale, she said. The shapes of the sculptures were inspired by their location.
“You’ve got this combination of these circular forms that almost look like it could be a throw toy or a dog bone,” Marx said, noting that Mabry is known for blending geometric, modernist large-scale sculptural work with more naturalistic, figurative elements. The vertical, abstracted sculpture is topped by a realistically rendered – but still bright blue – sculpture of a red-tailed hawk, chosen because the bird is native to the area. Visitors can glimpse a second blue hawk perching nearby – another whimsical touch designed to delight passersby.
“We want people to interact with the art and the architecture and the spaces that are for people to enjoy,” she said.
Native bird species loom large, literally, in the murals “Beauty of Bair Island, Great Egrets and Alkali Barley” and “Beauty of Bair Island, California Clapper Rails and Gum Plant” by Kelly Ording. The pair of vividly colored murals are inspired by the flora and fauna of nearby Bair Island, including the endangered Ridgway’s rail (formerly called the California clapper rail) and can be seen not only by pedestrians but also Caltrain riders rolling by.
“Because it’s on the Caltrain path, we wanted it to be very bold, bright (and) easy to read,” Marx said. Ording is known for her skill with color and typically works in more abstract, geometric designs but for this project, “she took a leap, and did more figurative imagery,” Marx said. “She really animated the animals. They’re just delightful.” Though the landscaping was not yet installed when she painted the murals, Ording worked with the landscape designer to plan for where she should start her paintings so that the birds appear to be strolling through the now-present plants.
“The Shed,” a building awaiting a tenant and designed to house a cafe or similar business, is a reconstructed version of Perry’s Fuel and Feed, a historic Redwood City business. The artwork adorning the exterior, “Caretake This Land” by artist duo MCXT, is full of references to Redwood City’s history, including Ohlone basketry patterns, nods to the city’s maritime identity and more. During the weeks the artists were working on the mural, they invited local children to paint and add their handprints and initials to the piece, making them a part of the city’s legacy.
Opposite The Shed is another artwork inspired by Redwood City’s history, this time its salt ponds. HYBYCOZO’s Halite sculpture is modeled after the crystalline shape of salt (halite is another word for rock salt). The Corten steel sculpture has interior LED lights and casts a special glow after dark. “At night, it lights up, and then it radiates onto the concrete, onto the pool. It’s really beautiful,” Marx said.
Eventually, the plan is for some areas of Elco Yards to be community gathering places.
“There’s a pavilion for performances, and then The Shed will actually become a restaurant, or a coffee bar, or a brewery, or something very public,” Marx said. “And then that lawn in front of building E will also host farmers markets, or events where the community can come and enjoy.”
On Lathrop Street, two artworks reference Redwood City’s ties to the chrysanthemum industry, including the Japanese American growers who built the industry in the early 20th century and saw it disrupted by wartime incarceration, a press release about the public art collection states.
Pard Morrison’s Chrysanthemum installation, consisting of four patinated aluminum columns, represents “a chrysanthemum field in an abstracted, modernist way,” Marx said. Visitors can “walk in and out and through the ‘field’,” she said, or sit and relax on a bench. Three more benches nearby boasting painted flower petals in different color palettes make up Leah Rosenberg’s Chrysanthemum Crossing.
“Color is usually where I start, but with Chrysanthemum Crossing, the history came first and the color followed,” Rosenberg states in the release. The benches not only add an eye-catching splash of color but also provide places to rest. “They’re functional. And so far, they’re holding up,” Marx said.
Chrysanthemum Crossing spans the road, with benches on each side.
“We want to have the artwork communicate with each other and create a give and take, a pass through, some connectivity. Because you’ve got these big, beautiful buildings, and each building is going to have different tenants,” Marx said. For people spending time in the area, whether they work there or are just strolling through, the goal is “to have this sense of connection, and that this is a place that belongs together.”
In some ways, Marx’s work on the project is “like designing an exhibit in a gallery, but outside,” she said. But curating a public art project comes with additional challenges, such as accessibility and broad appeal, as well as, in many cases, making sure pieces are durable enough to stand up to a lot of contact and exposure to the elements.
There are also many stakeholders, including the city’s art commission, to take into account. Elco Yards is a “one percent for art” project. By city ordinance, commercial development projects over 50,000 square feet must provide public art on site that is equal to at least 1% of the project’s construction valuation (or make a contribution to the city’s Art in Public Places fund).
In addition to the new artworks are refurbished pieces of Redwood City history – the former Main Street Car Wash, now marking the dog park, and a vintage neon sign salvaged from a former skating rink.
Putting together a public art collection is “like quilt making, in a sense,” Marx said, deciding on pieces one by one that flow together “aesthetically and visually, but you also have to have it aligned with the rules and regulations and the budget.”
Elco Yards, headquartered at 1601 El Camino Real and located between the Caltrain tracks and El Camino, incorporates office, lab and retail space, and a childcare center opened in October. As with many projects, there have been some twists, turns and delays during development. The COVID-19 pandemic happened, for one thing. The excavation of a Native American burial ground at the site also made headlines. Planned residential buildings and a creek walk are still under development and there are pending plans for works by two more artists to be added.
Not far from The Shed, at the heart of the development, is the most recent piece to be installed, Erwin Wurm’s Step – a bright orange, long-legged bag wearing sneakers, part of Wurm’s playful “Walking Bag” series. Step, which includes sneakers unique to this particular bag, is Wurm’s first permanent public sculpture on the U.S. West Coast, according to the press release.
“With Step, I explore the relationship between the human body and the objects through which we define ourselves,” stated Wurm in the release. “The bag takes on a bodily presence, while the elongated legs suggest movement and instability. Placed in public space, the sculpture enters the rhythm of everyday life, inviting viewers to reconsider the familiar and their own relationship to the things they carry.”
Marx has been a fan of Austrian artist Wurm’s work for some time, admiring how he gives animation, exaggeration and personality to everyday objects and finding the “Walking Bag” to be a perfect fit for a development that is meant to serve many roles.
“It could be someone shopping, or someone going to school, or, a worker, an office worker with a briefcase. And then the sense of movement,” she said of the sculpture. “And we wanted, again, that sense of movement throughout Elco Yard, to create a neighborhood that’s alive.”
Elco Yards is located at 1601 El Camino Real, Redwood City. All artworks are outdoors and are free to view at any time. For more information, visit hmxaa.com/elco-yards or iqhqreit.com/districts/elco-yards.
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