The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 365

ART ARCHITECTURE Stations m-iii i I' vrr Continued from Page 4 bolic merger of medicine and astronomy. Walking from the bottom of the escalator to the trains, subway riders first encounter granite medallions on the floor depicting microscopic life forms, then come face to face with the station's focal point a large metal wall piece that resembles a solar system but also contains symbols inspired by early pharmaceutical notations. All these projects were produced by Metro Art, a department of the Metropolitan Transit Authority that's empowered to spend one-half of 1 of MTA rail construction costs to enhance Los Angeles' rail system through the arts. Yes, that MTA the one that is plagued by sinkholes, cost overruns and mad-as-hell voters and politicans. Despite the agency's ongoing woes, its art program keeps chugging along.

Metro Art has commissioned 175 artists to create works for rail stations and other transit-related projects during the past 10 years. Metro Art's budget has not been allowed to increase as the cost of the 59.4-mile Metro Rail system escalated to $6 billion. Nonetheless, with about $16 million allotted to art and related expenses on the Blue Line (downtown Los Angeles to downtown Long Beach), Green Line (Norwalk to Redondo Beach) and Red Line I (downtown Los Angeles to i 1 M. ill I i lUfi liii 1 my MB 1 in: fi mm i film I .1.111 MnMMn Wilshire Center and North Hollywood), Los Angeles has the nation's largest rail system with built-in art constructed during the last decade or so. New York's subway system by far the largest in the country also has an art program, Arts for Transit, but it renovates old stations and has spent a comparatively much smaller sum, $9 million, on artworks alone over the last 14 years.

"One of the things public art should do is keep people guessing. It's wonderful when you are able to stretch the subway rider's imagination. His proposal was extremely successful at doing Review Los Angeles, 42 of the initial group of 50 art-en- II SANDRA BL00DW0RTH Director of New York's Arts for Transit, on the work of George Stone hanced stations are al ready operating; the last eight stations, on the Red Photos by RICK MEYER Los Angeles Times want is a newsstand and a hot dog vendor, the necessities of the urban voyager. Few of the stations, however, aspire to such lofty aims. At the Vermont Beverly Station, for instance, a cluster of enormous fake boulders looms above as you descend into the station.

Designed by artist George Stone and made of spray-on concrete and wire mesh, the boulders resemble the faux landscapes of any aquarium or zoo. Here, the image of. tumbling rocks also evokes earthquakes, an unfortunate effect. But the classical motifs of the rest of the station's architecture painted in a beige and green palette is no less artificial. Designed by Anil Verma Associates, it reduces classicism to an uninspired platitude.

But for the truly mundane, there's the new VermontSunset station. Above ground, the main elevator is encased in a banal glass cylinder capped by a semi-spherical steel cage. The im-" age is meant to bring to mind the Griffith Observatory that on a clear day can be glimpsed far off in the distance. The portal is pulled back from the street to make room for an empty plaza ringed by five palm trees whose function is hard tc fathom. Otherwise, there's not much to see.

Below ground, some of the new stations are a bit more inspired. As in his design for the entry portal, Yasdani's station interior takes advari" tage of the dramatic height of Please see Review; Page 50 Continued from Page 5 system with freeways that would more closely service their own interests a Chinatown-like parable of corporate greed. The last of the Big Red cars, as they were affectionately nicknamed, were phased out in 1961. The current episode of this sorry tale is an extension of that lack of responsible urban and social planning. Logic would dictate that the main line of any Metro system for Los Angeles should run the length of Wilshire Boulevard, along the city's central spine and through its densest neighborhoods.

Instead, the Red Line makes an abrupt turn at Vermont Avenue up to Hollywood and, eventually, through the Cahuenga Pass into North Hollywood. As far as envisioning the system as a means of connecting the city's ethnically segregated communities east and west, Latino, Asian and Anglo the East Side line has now been entirely scrapped due to lack of government funds. Such thinking, of course, harks back to the failed urban strategies of the 1950s and '60s, when gargantuan civic projects were built with the aim of sparking urban growth in underdeveloped areas, rather than reinforcing existing urban patterns. Since that time, it has become increasingly obvious to most that such projects work best when they seek to strengthen the city's 'Underlying structure, "After all," why not. serve peo'' Line, are being completed.

Five of them, in Hollywood, will open next weekend with a celebration including free rides on Saturday and Sunday. The final three Hollywood Highland, Universal City and North Hollywood are scheduled for completion next summer. Budgets for individual art projects on the three rail lines range from $50,000 to $500,000, with the more richly endowed projects reaping the benefits of public and corporate contributions, said Maya Emsden, director of Metro Art. Artworks for the Gateway Transit Center at Union Station were funded separately with $3 million in federal, state and local money. The average cost of the art components of the five new Red Line stations is $320,000.

But the figures can be misleading because some art expenses are incorporated in construction budgets when artists are involved at an early stage of planning, she said. Furthermore, only 59 of the money in art budgets goes to the artists' contracts; 16 is spent on architects, engineers and other consultants; 15 is used for administration, including Metro Art staff salaries and community outreach; 10 goes into a conservation fund for future repairs and upkeep. Each station is the product of a collaboration between an artist and architect, and each structure is distinctive. "That was a conscious decision," Emsden said. Unlike Washington, D.C.'s subway system, where all the stations look alike, Los Angeles has developed a huge collection of unique projects, she said.

Unusual as Metro Art may appear, it is actually one of about 30 similar programs nationwide that are reviving a formerly moribund tradition of combining fine art with public transportation, funded by up to 2 of construction costs. From Boston to Seattle, in St. Louis' art-enhanced light rail system, Miami's revitalization of rail station neighborhoods and Corpus Christi, Texas' decorative bus transfer centers, public art programs -seeni "to be reinventing an VmY, Please see Stations, Page 50 pie where they actually live and work? Whether intentional or not, the decision to form some kind of connection to communities above reflects unease about the rail system's inability to connect to the city as a whole on a more direct level. In all of the new stations, ground-level plazas are meant to function as outdoor public spaces. Several miles from the HollywoodVine faux landmarks, the Vermont Santa Monica stop has the most contemporary feel of the new stations.

Designed by Mehrdad Yas-dani in collaboration with the artist Robert Millar, the portal is topped by an enormous canopy made of steel. Eye-shaped in profile, the canopy dramatically, qn. enormous machine-like'. Manuel' pointing down-towar a sub terranean world. This is not theme-driven drivel.

Yasdani and Millar were able to create a dramatic entryway by letting natural light in through a glass-block ceiling and playing up the 45-foot height of the entry space. But the team could not overcome the scale of the exterior plaza. Yasdani provided outdoor electrical outlets behind the portal so street performers will be able to plug in their instruments. He also allotted some space for local vendors. But until Metro officials can provide such much-needed services and events, the plaza seems like leftover space.

It reflects a desire to pump up the system's importance rather than 1,0. satisfy, the, needs local people really wantto 'loiter here? What you -LOS ANGELES CALENDAR- i r49.