With the addition of Tom Otterness's 2007 bronze sculpture Playground in a new riverfront park this fall, Pittsburgh will have the highest concentration of playground equipment-as-sculpture in North America. With two.
The Pittsburgh burg of Aspinwall is redeveloping a marina parking lot along the Allegheny River into a marina parking lot plus a park, and the Post-Gazette reports that the local Grable Foundation has procured a Playground for the playground.
This is no. 5 of a limited edition of 6 sculptures in a design Otterness originally created for a public art competition [which he lost]. The first three, the Post-Gazette reports, are in private collections in Aspen, Cape Cod [pictured above], and Palm Beach. [The latter two are apparently the same collector. I hope he got at least a 20% discount.]
The fourth, as Daddy Types readers and Hell's Kitchen denizens will know, is in some rental tower's pocket park.
Which means the Pittsburgh one will be the first truly public installation. And there's one left!
Big Girl Playground, 2011, image: scott lambertson/tomostudio
Oh wait, no. There is another. In 2011 Otterness was commissioned to make Big Girl Playground, [the first of] which [so far] was installed at RidgeHill Mall in Yonkers. Yonkers!
Park in Aspinwall to house $1 million-plus sculpture that kids can climb [post-gazette.com via dt reader dt]
Tom Otterness, Big Girl Playground, 2011 [tomostudio]
Aspinwell Riverfront Park [aspinwellriverfrontpark.org]
Previously
2013: Western Hemisphere/Pittsburgh Finally Getting A Lozziwurm
2010: Your Search For Million-Dollar Pseudo-Art Playgrounds Returned 1 Result
2009: Tom Otterness Playground Comes to Hell's Kitchen South
