Projects of the CODA Public Spaces Program
The Civic Trust
CODA Public Spaces Program....
Atlanta 1996
"Public Space, The Olympics, and the Inner City"
by Randal Roark.....(page 4)
The fourth initiative recognizes civic monuments
as important elements in the public landscape. In addition to bringing
a dignity and beauty to the environment, they serve as symbols of our collective
identity, both past and present, making our heroes and stories visible.
They are further empowered by their presence in a public landscape, reaffirming
that they belong to us all. For example, a monument to 19th century newspaper
editor Henry Grady has more power in the median of Marietta Street than
in the lobby of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution building. 
The story
is the same but out on the street he is part of how we define ourselves
as Atlantans, as part of our collective character. The State Capitol is
an extraordinary repository of monuments of Georgia history in an otherwise
sparse landscape, but there is no equivalent venue(s) for the telling of
the Atlanta story. Part of CODA's public space mission is to reinvigorate
this aspect of the public realm and in particular to tell the story of
the City's recent past and its continuing ascendancy towards a major heterogeneous
international city. To this end CODA is including an ambitious civic monument
and historic interpretive component to its public spaces program, which
includes 52 separate artists' commissions.
The Civic Trust
Georgia Tech Campus ... Fox ... Portman ... Public Spaces ... Chicken ... Billboards ... Varsity ... Atlanta Essay ... Gorillas ... Stone ... Dreams & Crossroads ... Symphony ... Links ... Neat Stuff
