Vancouver, BC, Canada – Sometimes public art can really bring a community together. A-maze-ing Laughter, a collection of 14 larger-than-life bronze self-portraits by the Chinese artist Yue Minjun, exists in a state of overwhelming amusement in Morton Park at English Bay in Vancouver. Some of the figures playfully make faces while others are doubled over … Read More

San Francisco, Calif. – In 2012, San Francisco celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with International Orange, a major exhibition and public art project. One of the 16 artists involved in the exhibition was Andy Freeberg. For his photographic installation called Gatekeepers, Freeberg created a series of images of the bridge’s numerous … Read More

Cambodia – During a slow-moving ride through traffic in a tuk-tuk—a motorcycle taxi with an attached open cart for passengers—one has ample opportunity to survey the bland and decorative public art of Cambodia’s cities. It’s the kind of art that can be seen in most cities anywhere on the globe. Cambodia’s tends toward realistic and … Read More

In late 2010, movers transported a small, decrepit house from one part of Houston’s Fifth Ward district to another, setting the condemned domicile onto an open lot on Lyons Ave. By the following summer, Houston-based artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck were hard at work, reconstructing—or rather deconstructing—the humble pink abode into what Ruck calls … Read More

Artist Jefre Manuel, who works under the name JEFRË, is a relative newcomer to public art. Three years ago, at the age of 35, the practicing designer had a heart attack and triple bypass. The experience convinced him to retire from architecture/landscape architecture and return to his artistic practice (among other places, he studied at … Read More

Europe – Two ambitious placemaking projects are unfolding on a vast, long-term scale in unconventional cultural landscapes: a disused military park outside Amsterdam and an abandoned amusement park in East Berlin. Both are recent ruins of collapsed political systems, “forbidden zones” whose past uses are still visible, and whose futures are being explored by teams … Read More

On April 9, 2013, the world lost one of its great minds. Paolo Soleri, the architect, artist, theorist, and counterculture hero best known for his philosophy of arcology, which stresses the connection between architecture and ecology, died at age 93 at his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Soleri spent a lifetime investigating how architecture, specifically … Read More

From his studio in Germany, Herbert Dreiseitl designs public spaces that explore “the interaction of the individual with his surroundings.” Dreiseitl says he was first inspired to explore placemaking by his work with heroin-addicted youth. “I figured out that the way to reach young people is through their surroundings. The key question to social life … Read More

San José, Calif. –  The legendary capital of Silicon Valley, is California’s third largest city and the tenth largest in the United States. It’s home to the corporate headquarters of Adobe, Cisco, and eBay, and major facilities of Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, and Lockheed Martin. Apple and the Googleplex round out Silicon Valley’s bright lights. Smaller … Read More

Every year Forecast is amazed by the talented artists and innovative ideas that are proposed through our annual grant program. We want to thank all of our applicants for their hard work and creative concepts. We would also like to thank our independent selection panel for taking on the challenging task of selecting grantees. Congratulations … Read More