Arts On The Line
Porter Square MBTA Station

Station Architect:
Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., Cambridge, MA

Commissioned for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
through the Cambridge Arts Council's Arts On The Line program.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Urban Mass
Transportation Administration, and the Massachusetts
Bay Transportation Authority.

Artist: Susumu Shingu
Title: Gift of the Wind
Date: 1983
Materials: steel, aluminum
Dimensions: 46' x 23'

Cambridge's most visible landmark - a 46' high windmill sculpture - was created by Japanese sculptor Susumu Shingu. Its huge red wings are designed to shift in response to the movement of the wind, not only turning clockwise and counter clockwise, but tumbling over and over in various sequences.

Artist: Carlos Dorrien
Title: Ondas
Date: 1983
Material: Carved granite relief
Dimensions: 24' x 2' 2"

Dorrien shaped this undulating granite wave from the same granite that faces the station entrance, creating the illusion that the wave is an organic form emerging from the headhouse wall. The sculpture runs vertically along both the exterior and interior of the 24-foot high wall, extending down to the escalator inside.

Artist: Mags Harries
Title: Glove Cycle
Date: 1984
Material: Bronze
Dimensions: Various sizes

A number of bronze gloves can be found throughout the station, on one of the turnstiles, tumbling down the metal divider between two escalators, embedded in the mezzanine floor and along both platforms. A small pool of gloves lies on the floor at the bottom of the escalator and a large pyramid of gloves in a corner of the inbound platform.

Artist: William Reimann
Title: Unititled
Date: 1983
Material: Granite
Dimensions: Six bollards

Combining traditional folk art with modern urban design, the artist sandblasted these intricate ethnic designs into the granite bollards that surround the station. The designs are based on elements unique to the various ethnic groups who populate the Porter Square area, including African, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Hispanic, Italian, Japanese, Penobscot Indian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Scandinavian.

Artist: David Phillips
Title: Porter Square Megaliths
Date: 1984
Material: Field stone, bronze, pavers
Dimensions: 5' 8" x 2' x 20'

The site-specific art, which occupies much of the plaza outside the station, consists of four boulders that have been 'sliced' by Phillips, who then replaced some of the sections with bronze replicas, cast in his studio, leaving the impression that these bollards were simply carved out of living rock.