The Pike, Donald Lipski, 2022
SERVICES PROVIDED: Design coordination, Materials research, Budget management, Engineering coordination and oversight, Fabricator bid process, Fabrication oversight, Lighting design development, Shipping, Installation services, Scheduling, Project close-out.
For Arlington, Virginia’s Western Gateway, near Columbia Pike and South Jefferson Street, artist Donald Lipski was selected to create a welcoming gateway sculpture in conjunction with the County’s Multimodal Street Improvement project. This Brancusi-like sculpture, entitled The Pike, features the blade of a wind turbine, measuring 50’ tall, that sits atop a base studded with thousands of coins from more than 100 countries represented by the citizens of what is perhaps the most ethnically-diverse population of any city in the country. These coins further reference the history of the Columbia Pike as a toll road and one of the oldest thoroughfares in the region as one enters Arlington from the west while the sculpture’s orientation suggests the welcoming, upright position of a toll gate. Residents of Columbia Pike collected, counted, and sorted the donated 4,784 coins from 117 countries and every continent (except Antarctica).
Select text and images courtesy of Donald Lipski.
