There is a new art installation at the top of City Hall titled Isochronic Mountain Buffalo. The work was constructed by Joshua G. Stein, FAAR 2011, Principal, Radical Craft, and professor of architecture at Woodbury University. Isochronic Mountain Buffalo is an interactive installation that allows viewers to experience the city of Buffalo in a topographical manner. This is an exercise in mobility – the topographical work demonstrates how long it takes for a person to work his or her way towards to epicenter of the city, without the use of a car.
The map allows people to pinpoint their place of work, or their residence, upon which time they can navigate their way to City Hall. In the end, each person will have a greater understanding of mobility, and what it means to depend on public transportation.
If you live along a ridge line, it is relatively fast to travel to downtown without a car.
If you live in a ‘transit valley’, it is more difficult to access the city by bus or metro.
“The project is a continuation of a project I’ve been working on for a few years,” said Stein. “As I’m based in Los Angeles, I know what it means to live in a city which once had a great public transit system that was dismantled. Every day I experience the implications of these policy decisions made generations ago. I also realize that there are others in the city for whom these decisions have even more dire repercussions. I wanted to try to develop a way to visualize the difference in the lived experience of the city before and after this significant moment in time (the dismantling of the tram system). The first incarnation of this project was initiated in Sao Paulo.
“When I applied for the Creative Arts Initiative residency at UB, I wanted to address similar issues as they impact Buffalonians today. Buffalo was a great place to push these ideas and techniques as I was able to call on experts in both policy and GIS (the UBRI) and in ceramic craft (Boston Valley Terra Cotta). I developed this project with the idea that the sculptural model would be located in the observation deck of City Hall as a way to offer a compliment to the bird’s-eye-view of the city.”
Isochronic Mountain Buffalo should be considered by viewers as a “mountain of time”. Each “step” climbed in the mountain indicates two minutes of time spent on transit or walking, according to Stein. “Over the last year I’ve been working on this public art project that addresses public transit access within Buffalo,” said Stein. “[Moving forward] I will be hosting a few public conversations as opening events.”
Access Art Installation & Public Discussions
Exhibition Design: Gekh | Temporary installation – Isochronic Mountain sculpture is re-cast and re-composed in a pop-up art space on Buffalo’s West Side.
Saturday June 1 & Sunday June 2
2pm
450 Rhode Island
Hosted by Five Points Business Association
Isochronic Mountain Buffalo – Public Art Installation
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
12 PM – 2 PM
City Hall Observation Deck – Buffalo City Hall, Buffalo, New York 14202
Hosted by Five Points Business Association