One of Siah Armajani's abiding artistic concerns has been the creation of a truly public art that unites structure with site and use. His designs for bridges, reading rooms, houses, and gazebos encourage both contemplation and communal activity. One of this best-known local works, the elegant Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge (1988), links the Garden with Loring Park. This 375-foot-long span incorporates the three fundamental approaches to bridge building-beam, arch, and suspension. In other works, many of them smaller-scale, indoor pieces, Armajani explores architectural elements and construction techniques while divorcing them from their original functions. Bridge over a Tree (1970), which was temporarily erected in the field that is now the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, featured two staircases that led nowhere except up and over a tree. The quirky Model for House #2 (1970), which takes its form from lean-to dwellings, features a ramp that leads into a wall and an inaccessible second-story room.
 
 

Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge
1988
steel, wood, paint, bronze

Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis