St. Paul, Minnesota, is spearheading a quiet revolution in public art. A 2009 city ordinance includes artists in the regulations by which the city makes and remakes itself. Here, artists don’t merely make sculptures and murals to adorn the urban landscape; they have a meaningful role in city government and participate in the conception, development, … Read More

Alejandro Haiek Coll lives in Caracas, Venezuela. In his architectural design work, he is more interested in “the design of a logistic chain of events than to the massive construction.” His projects, which often have a strong social component, have focused on the renewal and resuscitation of inactive landscapes, revival of urban soils, and the … Read More

Artist Deirdre O’Mahony explores the complicated intersection of public space, civic life, history, and art. In one piece, for example, she reopened an abandoned rural post office as X-PO, a public meeting place that hosted events, installations, lectures, and art exhibits. A key to X-PO—and to O’Mahony’s concept of placemaking—is providing a platform for spontaneous … 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

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

New Orleans–based Candy Chang creates simple, analog messaging systems that allow strangers to share—anonymously and in public—their thoughts, memories, and dreams. Before I Die featured a fill-in-the-blank chalkboard affixed to an abandoned house—an invitation to passers-by to chalk in their bucket list; I Wish This Was used removable vinyl stickers to collect suggested uses for … Read More

Food has always been one of the firmest definers of place. Cheese-steak sandwiches, pit beef, and deep-dish pizza are edible shorthand for Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago. Iowa is about corn and Maine is about lobster. But food has subtler and more complex connections to place. It can be a part of rituals that hallow a … Read More

World – Public art today is a rapidly growing and evolving field. Each project embodies a unique convergence of time and place, artist and community, style and approach, vision and actualization. Yet public art lacks evaluative studies, in-depth research, and comparative data to serve the expanding field worldwide. Likewise, information about high-caliber projects in different cities and countries is not broadly accessible across … Read More