First Appeared Friday, 09 May '03

Campus Installs Striking Chandelier at Genentech Hall

The crowning touch at UCSF Genentech Hall — the recent installation of a five-pendant chandelier designed by California artist Jim Isermann — is the first product of an ambitious public art program planned for the Mission Bay campus.

The striking chandelier hangs dramatically over the first floor lobby and is visible from the second- through fifth-floor balconies and seating areas that surround the skylight-lit atrium.

Each 1,800-pound pendant, measuring 34-and-a-half-feet long, resembles but does not represent a molecular structure and is made of bright orange and red painted light-gauge aluminum that wraps around eight white polycarbon globes. The globes are illuminated from a single light pipe at the base of each pendant.

For Isermann, the installation, completed on April 25, 2003, culminated a two-and-a-half-year process -- from a mere figment of his imagination to an illuminated work of art that is his largest piece to date.

“It’s very exciting,” said Isermann, 47, an award-winning contemporary artist who left his home in Palm Springs to oversee the installation while some faculty and staff stopped to watch.

Based on input from engineers and architects, the pendants were hung from the ceiling and mounted to the wall with sturdy steel cables constructed to safely hold ten times the weight of each piece. It took five days to install all five pendants, delivered to the door on specially designed steel cradles, after being manufactured by Carlson & Co., a specialty art producer in San Fernando Valley. In fact, the pieces barely fit through the entrance.

“It’s been an amazing process,” Isermann said of the careful handling and hanging of the work. “We never saw them vertical before now because the shop wasn’t tall enough to stand them up. It’s everything I had hoped for, and it looks almost exactly like the model.”

California artist Jim Isserman oversaw the installation of the chandelier he designed for Genentech Hall.

For the model, Isermann used ping pong balls to replicate the globes which in the final product measure about three feet wide. Both the model and the chandelier will be on display on Wednesday, June 11, 2003, when Isermann will return to UCSF to celebrate with the campus community the first art installation at Mission Bay. He will give a lecture at noon in the auditorium of Genentech Hall, located at Sixteenth and Owens streets in San Francisco. A reception will follow.

Complementary Colors

The chandelier complements the color scheme and scale of the Isermann-designed carpeting that surrounds the atrium and accents the seating areas where a collection of classic furniture completes the space. The carpet was created by manufacturer Milliken through an ink-jet printing process that blends geometric and circular shapes in vibrant rust and ochre colors on a neutral background.

Isermann also selected classic modern chairs and tables for the common seating areas. He chose chrome-plated steel frame diamond chairs with orange-colored upholstery designed by Harry Bertoia in the 1950s and produced continuously by Knoll, a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of furnishings for office and residential use. He also selected classic square steel and glass tables and Barcelona chairs designed by Mies van der Rohe, as well as aluminum café tables designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1954 and produced by Herman Miller.

Isermann was among several artists invited in 2001 by the Mission Bay Art Advisory Board, chaired by San Francisco art collector Steven H. Oliver, to visit the Catellus Visitors Center for a preview of the entire 43-acre UCSF Mission Bay campus. They viewed the designs of the buildings planned for the first phase of the 20-year campus development project.

“None of us (artists) were picked for a particular building. It was pretty much up to us to choose a building, try to work with a space and submit a proposal,” Isermann recalled.

After reviewing several proposals, the Mission Bay Art Advisory Board recommended Isermann’s proposal to Chancellor Mike Bishop, who approved the project as part of his pledge that UCSF will budget 1 percent of Mission Bay construction costs for public art, much like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University and other major universities.

“Jim Isermann is an internationally respected artist whose work crosses and plays with boundaries between art and design,” said Mary Beebe, a member of the art advisory board and director of the 20-year-old Stuart Collection at UC San Diego. “We found his proposal not only an appropriate, but exciting way to enliven and unify the atrium and its adjacent spaces.”

Architectural Wonder

Isermann was drawn immediately to Genentech Hall’s expansive atrium — itself an architectural wonder that fuses glass and steel in geometric patterns and serves as the central focus, main source of light and fantastic views of the city on every floor. Initially conceived to hang in the center of the atrium, the chandelier was, for safety regulations, attached to the main wall opposite the primary staircase, which Isermann points out, actually works to offset the freestanding staircase.

Architecturally, Genentech Hall was designed to foster collaboration and interaction between scientists, scholars and staff who began moving into the building in January 2003. The open staircase plays a crucial role in daily interaction of its occupants, as noted by the building’s principal designer William L. Diefenbach of the San Francisco office of SmithGroup, one of the nation’s largest architecture, engineering and planning firms.

The entire Mission Bay campus design is based upon four principles — connectivity, collegiality, cohesiveness and context — which govern the organization and character of open space and buildings, as spelled out in the Mission Bay Campus Master Plan and Design Guidelines prepared by Machado and Silvetti Associates Inc. and Gordon H. Chong & Partners, with landscape architects Olin Partnership. Thus, plans for the first few buildings at Mission Bay feature a central atrium.

Will everyone like this new addition to Mission Bay? Assistant Chancellor Susan Montrose recalls working at UCSD in 1983 when Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Sun God” was the first public sculpture installed as part of the Stuart Collection. “Most people had a hard time taking it seriously at first, this giant bird-like colorful creature on a grassy mound. But after a while, it grew on folks and has all but become a campus mascot over the years. So you just never know how people will respond. Controversy is to be expected.”

Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Isermann moved to California in 1978 to attend CalArts, where he earned a Masters in Fine Arts. He has been inspired by many architects and artists including Andy Warhol, Bertoia and Eames. His next exhibit will be this fall in New York.

Photo by Elisabeth Fall

Source: Lisa Cisneros

Links:

UCSF Mission Bay website