Curating a Sculpture Park Strategy (Allies & Morrison Architects and J&L Gibbons Landscape Architects)
The Sidgwick site is an important focal point for arts, humanities and social sciences. The incorporation of sculpture and artwork is integral to the site’s development strategy. The curation of a sculpture park strategy for the site is an exciting way to formalise this intent and to forge new partnership and collaborative opportunities with arts organisations on the theme of 'ecosystem', which describes the way all the living things in an area affect each other and the environment. It embraces the potential for art to enhance the enjoyment, understanding and experience of the public realm, reflecting today’s diverse and rich landscape and society.
The advantage of the Sidgwick site is that it is open and accessible to the wider community. The site already forms part of The Cambridge City Sculpture Trail, which is curated as three walks providing access to over sixty works of art of 20th and 21st century sculpture; Sculpture Trail 2 includes the three vitrines which are sunk below the paving outside the Alison Richard building by artist and writer Edmund de Waal.
Antony Gormley’s sculpture of a life size figure in solid cast iron has recently been installed on the northern side of the raised dais of the Raised Faculty building. The loan of this work from a leading artist boosts the idea of formalising site-wide curation in the context of the masterplan.
The cultural enhancement provided by a sculpture strategy, including the potential to locate a sculpture in the public spaces associated with new buildings or extensions, will improve legibility of the masterplan as well as contributing further to the city-wide Sculpture Trail initiative.