UCSF Mission Bay is now home to more than 100 pieces of contemporary furniture in the Koret Quad where faculty, staff and students can sit in solitude or socialize.

Designed by Seattle-based artist Roy McMakin, the eclectic collection in his mind is "one piece with many components," similar to a painting with numerous brush strokes.

A graduate of UC San Diego's art department, McMakin, who also created the furniture for the Museum at the Getty Center in 1998, returned to UCSF Mission Bay for two days recently to oversee the placement of the works around the perimeter of the 3.2-acre campus green known as the Koret Quad. The whimsical assortment includes three types of bronzed chairs; benches made of plantation teak, colored fiberglass and concrete benches; and enameled replicas of Bankers Box® storage boxes, file boxes and minus-80-degree freezers. McMakin also made various bronze plank benches, tables and tree stumps and brought many granite boulders down from Seattle to round out the collection.

Mission Bay art consultant Mathieu Gregoire, who assisted McMakin in the installation process, describes the works as "theatrical." "People use them and interact with them and with each other, experiencing the work over a period of time."

McMakin was selected to specifically design artwork for the campus green by a team of experts appointed by Chancellor Mike Bishop to serve on the Mission Bay Art Advisory Board. He drew his inspiration for his work from multiple sources. First, McMakin reacted to the Mission Bay campus hardscape and landscape designs, which follow a geometry that divides the green with pathways to connect campus buildings. "I was struck by its smart, sophisticated clarity and organization and was trying for a different way of getting people to relate with each other in the space. It's like these works bounced off the system or mutated."

Second, McMakin was struck by the way in which guests at a dinner party he once hosted moved furniture around to suit their individual needs. He saw a similar impromptu shifting of furniture and equipment while visiting his partner Mike Jacob's research laboratory in Seattle. "They moved furniture around and used things for what they wanted almost with complete disregard for its original purpose."

For the campus green, McMakin tries to symbolize this movement by designing concrete pads that are aligned on the original grid, but intentionally displaces the furniture to give the sense things were relocated at will. "This is meant to convey that people bothered to break the system to make the seats work for them," McMakin says. "The irony of course in creating this chaotic and jumbled look is that it actually requires an enormous amount of organization."

McMakin credits his colleagues Eric Aasen, "director of realization," and Scott Graczyk, design engineer, for helping with the implementation and installation of his artistic vision. He also says his parents encouraged him early on and allowed him the freedom to explore a career in art.

As in previous installations, McMakin employs what he considers American icons: late 19th century wood office chairs, mid-20th century Eames chairs and the cheap plastic garden chairs commonly available today — all meticulously rendered in bronze. Banker boxes and minus-80-degree freezers, which can be used for a multitude of purposes, were fabricated in enamel to resemble the real objects at Mission Bay. "The rocks are interesting because they are essentially acting as chairs," McMakin says. "In a way this [collection] represents the history of seating."

Growing Art Collection

McMakin's seating elements add to the growing number of public artworks at the 43-acre Mission Bay campus, where two research buildings are operating and several more buildings are under construction. Chancellor Bishop has pledged non-state funds for art at the new research and teaching campus equal to one percent of new construction costs, just as other major universities have done across the country.

In mid-May, Los Angeles-based artist Liz Larner supervised the placement of a major work in the lobby of the research building, known as the Genetics, Development and Behavioral Sciences building. The 12-foot sphere — which looks like it's becoming a cube — is painted in iridescent metallic green and stands as the centerpiece of the sky-lit atrium. Because of the rational but complex form, and the uniqueness of the surface, it appears to be constantly changing in form and color, notes Gregoire.

Response to the Larner sculpture has been diverse, provoking critical and complimentary comments and questions, he says. "That's what one would hope for."

In addition, a sculpture by world-renowned artist Richard Serra has been commissioned for the main gateway to the UCSF Mission Bay campus. The piece consists of two rectangular, slightly tilting steel plates nearly 50 feet high that will be installed vertically in the campus plaza, which serves as the main pedestrian entrance to UCSF Mission Bay from Third Street. The work is expected to be installed in February 2005. "The steel plates are so big and heavy that the plaza must be completed around them," Gregoire notes.

The next major artwork destined for the new campus is by German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol, an internationally recognized artist, who is creating a sculpture to serve as a focal point for the 80-foot atrium space of the Campus Community Center. Balkenhol is carving a set of four figures, each facing a different direction, from the trunk of a single large tree. Representing the diversity at UCSF, the figures will stand 8 to 10 feet tall and will greet visitors to the four-story social and recreational campus community center, which is expected to open in summer 2005.

Source: Lisa Cisneros

Last updated November 9, 2005

Artist Roy McMakin

Artist Roy McMakin. Photo by Elisabeth Fall.

Artists and furniture on Koret Quad

Discussing the arrangement of furniture in the Koret Quad at UCSF Mission Bay are, from left, Mathieu Gregoire, Scott Graczyk, Roy McMakin and Eric Aasen. Photo by Elisabeth Fall.

Liz Larner sculpture

This 12-foot sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist Liz Larner is the centerpiece in the Genetics, Development and Behavioral Sciences building. Photo by Elisabeth Fall.