Boylston Place Gateway

Architectural & Sculptural Metalsmithing
by Dimitri Gerakaris

Boylston Place Gateway links Boston Common with the Theater District. Its main purpose is to identify the entrance to a public place and to welcome people to enter. It furthermore serves as a bridge to varying styles of architecture. Like much of this artist's work, it operates on many different levels.

Hammered to shape from hot metal, and hot-dip galvanized to endure for generations, the gateway defies our common conceptions of metallic forms. Says Gerakaris, "metal can also be made to flow and move in graceful curves...it can be given an organic feel to express warmth and human feelings and made to reflect the wholeness of life. There is flow to the curtain-like forms, which make reference to the stage curtains of the nearby Theater District. Where the curtains join the arch on one side, there is a bronze frieze that depicts the theatrically-inclined dog, cat, rooster and donkey from the children's tale of the Bremen Town Musicians. On the opposite frieze, greeting these animals are corresponding creatures from local lore, such as the swan of the Boston Garden's swan boats, the mounted policeman's horse, etc.

While this child-like motif may seem comforting to many who pass it daily, there is a much more subtle and ironic allusion to the nature of life by the overall form of the gateway being identical to the gravestones in the old buryingground directly across Boylston Street. The Gateway's initial impression is to be of a flowing and easy to identify arching form, but for the thousands of people who daily pass its way, it contains a tremendous amount of detail serving to conjure up a feast of forms and imagery from the area.


Boylston_ThumbnailBronze Frieze Detail: Rooster Boylston Gateway view towards Boston CommonBoylston detail: Bear pulling back Gateway 'curtain'


BOYLSTON PLACE GATEWAY:Forged and color-galvanized steel with forged bronze; 19x24x6 ft. (5.8x7.3x1.8 m) 1988. Linking Boston Common to the Theater District.

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For more information, please contact:dg@Art-Metal.com
Dimitri Gerakaris
Architectural & Sculptural Metalsmithing
69 Upper Gates Road
Canaan, New Hampshire,03741
USA
Telephone/FAX: 603.523.7366
ALL material on this Web site Copyright © Dimitri Gerakaris 1996 a.r.r.
LAST UPDATED Feb, 2007