Montpelier Public Art Master Plan

Montpelier, Vermont

Why

When the City of Montpelier, Vermont began a collaboration with a private developer for a redevelopment project, they wanted to pursue an innovation approach. The project, supported by local, state and federal funds will be Montpelier’s largest private to public development in the past 30 years. One Taylor Street, which is being called the new gateway to Montpelier, has been catalytic for other design and community development projects. To that end, the City applied for and won an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to express community values and vision through public art at One Taylor Street.

How

The centerpiece of the planning process is a series of five creative visioning workshops led by teaching artists from different disciplines. These hands-on workshops are lead community members to create expressions of their vision for how art can increase their sense of place and community.

Each workshop culminated into a public event to exhibit the creative visioning works, with reflection time with the audience to gather input for the master plan.

What

All five of the creative visioning workshops will culminate into a Master Plan and an installation of the first major city-funded public art work. This commissioned work will celebrate the community’s hard work at developing the Public Art Master Plan and the adoption of the plan as a central component of city planning. The artwork – done by a Vermont artist and selected by a jury – will be installed at the One Taylor Street Redevelopment Project in 2019.

Client

City of Montpelier, Vermont

Team

Designing Local (Lead)

Services

Public Art Planning

Community Engagement

People

Amanda Golden (Lead)

Josh Lapp