The city of Toronto recognizes the benefit of publicly displayed art and encourages private sector developments in include it in their plans with the Percent for Public Art Program. The principle is that art is a public benefit to be enjoyed and experienced by residents and visitors around the city. The privately owned art is intended to make buildings and open spaces more attractive and interesting and to improve the quality of the public realm. This program requires that the artwork be clearly visible at all times from publicly accessible areas.
When Freed Developments & Capital Developments were developing a condominium project in the Yonge & Eglington area, public art was stipulated as part of the project. Peter Freed, president of Freed Developments was delighted at the opportunity.
“I personally get excited about it,” says Freed. “It’s an opportunity to do something fun. Large projects can take up an entire city block. That’s when it gets even more fun and the budget is much bigger. We put a lot of time into seeing what’s available, who we want to work with, and then go from there.”
As the result of a nationwide competition, art collective Blue Republic (Anna Passakas and Radoslaw Kudlinski) created Stargate – a colourful 3D space alien and glass mural.
To create the glass masterpiece, Imagic’s resident graphic guru Scott worked in collaboration with the artists to develop the perfect formula through a rigid sampling process. The richness of the colour was very important to the artists and could not be achieved through conventional (ceramic frit) glass printing. So, two layers of tempered glass were used to “sandwich” the image in the interlayer.
Imagic’s laminated glass assembly was sent to Trulite Industries to fabricate into sealed units that were forwarded to State Windows for installation. The result is stunning.
“It was extreme, it was very different and it was refreshing,” says Freed. “This one was very unique and as the neighbourhood is going through massive change, it was appropriate.”
If you have unique and specialized glass needs, contact our team at Imagic. We can help turn your vision into a reality!
