Transbay Terminal
2nd and Folsom
Bay Area artist Ned Kahn has been in this site before. He lived in San Francisco for over 20 years, many of which were spent designing educational exhibits at the Exploratorium. He recently moved to Sebastopol in Sonoma County to expand his studies and laboratory space.
Mr. Kahn’s work is a seamless synthesis of nature, art and technology. With extraordinary technical ability, he demonstrates the versatility of turbulent systems, such as the vortices of wind and water. His dazzlingly complex but comprehendible images of nature respond to viewers, conform to architectural structures, and reveal and make visible inherent environmental conditions.
For the Transit Center, Mr. Kahn will installed a series of water jets on the rooftop park that are triggered by sensors that respond to the vibrations of the flow of buses on the deck below. The frequency, motion and height of the jets will correspond to the level of activity on the bus deck, making the arrivals and departures of the buses visible and tangible through their choreographed effect on the water.
The Transbay Joint Power Authority (TJPA) committed $4.75 million to fund the acquisition of artwork for the program. The TJPA’s commitment is in the spirit of the city and county of San Francisco’s “Percent for Art Ordinance,” which allocates two percent of construction costs for the inclusion of public art in the civic structures and facilities, and is consistent with policies established by the Federal Transportation Authority encouraging the inclusion of art in transportation facilities.
TJPA engaged the San Francisco Arts Commission to manage and oversee the planning and development of the public art program.
The budget for this project was $378,300.