White Tail Plaza Hardscape Becomes Art

Come twilight, the islands glow from within to become White Tail Plaza’s illumination. A maelstrom of steel emerges from the larger of these islands and unwinds toward the sky evoking an aviary space.
Images courtesy of Chun Y Lai

Imagine being able to sit comfortably in a piece of art and contemplate nature, or a bird’s flight and know that you’re part of the universal, ever-changing pattern of life and regeneration… or just read a book.

Los Angeles sculptor Stephen Glassman’s large-scale sculptural plaza, transforms the LNR Warner Center campus from a corporate complex to a meditative retreat. Completed in December 2008, White Tail Plaza had its official debut and artist reception on June 16, 2009.

At the center of Glassman’s pond-shaped White Tail Plaza are two rock “islands” featuring integrated seating and a view of indigenous grasses and trees. Across the parking lot just beyond the periphery, a third sculpture rises and arches over the campus sidewalks to create a corporate entryway. In total, the sculptures create a 4000-square-foot plaza by fusing forms from nature with steel and light.

The weavings and unravelings of Glassman’s design suggest both natural and man-made systems. Woodland Hills was once riparian grassland — the L.A. River originally ran through it before it was concreted and channeled away to make room for 20th century development. This history and metamorphosis is memorialized in the work. The laser cut seating design was generated from a Japanese raking pattern.

According to Glassman, “Many tests were done to achieve the exact effect of the undulation. To achieve the cement striping, we laid in a 10-inch strip of black Mexican pebble and then down the center put in by hand a trickle of black glass when the cement was wet. It was all spread by hand to give it a nice, windblown feel, then surface retardant was laid over it. The next day power washing removed the retardant and the top layer.

The solid portion is light sand finished. On the striped part, we used a heavier grit retardant, then came back with a sand blaster just to touch it up.”

Each of the stones, river rock quarried in Utah, was chosen by Glassman and is individually attached—either wedged or bolted—on a structural steel membrane. They look as if they’ve been poured on, but there is no mortar, which lends a certain degree of transparency. According to Glassman, “The pieces are placed on the deck, but they become land art, even though they are constructed. Once again, in large scale projects, interfacing with large scale public spaces, you want to have the feeling that the work is growing from the site, but you don’t think, ‘that’s a garden.’ Even though the sculptures give an organic, site-specific feeling of a landscaped site, the installation is created off site and installed in a very short a period of time.” Glassman designed the steel as well, working with a foundry.

Stephen Glassman’s Venice, California studio is engaged in the creation of large-scale permanent national and international public art works. He represents a new generation of public artists that, in addition to a studio and gallery history, have always created work on the street—art for art’s sake in a social context.

“The archway is across the parking lot and just outside of the periphery of vision and brings a uniqueness to the institutional architecture. As you walk through this world of boxes and grids of information, you come into this area where it is absolutely not that. You can then know everything all at once. This is an area where it’s important to “not know,” to hold onto a moment of complete “unknown” which brings freedom to the property and the minds of the people who view it."

Collaboration has always been a major force in Glassman’s career and he has created major works with graffiti artists, bamboo workers, circus artists, dancers, performers, engineers, and scientists. Notable collaborators include Jonathan Borofsky, Philippe Petit, Sarah Elgart, and Oguri. He has also been commissioned to produce work for the Paris Opera, Moscow Circus, and filmmakers Kevin Kerslake and Catherine Hardwicke.

Glassman’s career portfolio from the past 29 years traverses many mediums including prints, drawings, sculpture, technology, performance, and design.

Over the past decade, as his work became more permanent and structural, he has been embraced by progressive architecture and planning communities to create new social spaces for the 21st Century.

Collaborators and projects include Sasaki Architects (Port of Los Angeles), Steinberg Architects (Santa Monica College), Gensler Architects (San Jose Airport), Miller / Hull Partnership (Seattle fire station), Erup Engineering, Steven Ehrlic, Rios Clemente Hale, LNR Property Corporation (courtyard sculpture/plaza), the City of Los Angeles (3 bridge projects), and the White House Millennium Council.

His creative influences include artists Gordon Matta-Clark and Alberto Giacometti, choreographer Pina Bausch, playwright Bertolt Brecht, architect Enrique Miralles, and martial artist Nishiyama.

Pieces by Glassman due for completion in October, 2009 include the Soto Bridge project in Los Angeles, a 60-foot intelligent pneumatics piece, in collaboration with Didier/Hess, for the new San Jose, CA airport, a 25-foot sculpture in Seattle that gathers stormwater runoff from a fire station roof and grows grass and a 40-foot outdoor sculpture for the city of Calgary.