:: Robert Hickman Laced Canopy ::

ROBERT HICKMAN LACED CANOPY

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Robert Hickman's Permanent Public Commission, commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The artwork is composed of over a million hand-cut pieces of glass which are laminated to the inside of the skylight atop the new 72nd Street subway station house for the IRT Broadway line at Verdi Square. The building is the first above ground station house to be built in New York in almost a century. The artwork is entitled 'Laced Canopy' and could be described as a delicate covering of crushed diamonds. Woven through the series of decorative panels are knots which correspond to notes from a line in Verdi's opera Rigoletto. The fine glass filigree act to atmospherically filter daylight into the station. Surrounding buildings become distorted like impressionist paintings. The artwork was inspired by the Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Laced Canopy 2002

New York City MASterwork Award

Best New Public Art

The Municipal Society of New York.

MTA Public Art Commission

72nd Street Subway Station, New York

100' long x 16' girth barrel vault skylight

More that 1 million hand-cut glass fragments

photo by Lydia Gould-Bessler