Located in Galvez Plaza at the intersection of the city’s civic and cultural districts, The Crest frames seemingly disparate structures from City Hall to the Old State Capitol to the Mississippi River Bridge to a tree-lined boulevard and Town Square, providing unique and varying views of the downtown skyline. The structure itself cantilevers a distance of 80 feet, with the canopy supported by a structural steel plate frame clad in stainless steel. For musical performances, a modular system of truss is assembled on site and attached to support sound and lighting and provide shelter from the elements for performances to different orientations. The stage gradually arcs from side to side, eliminating the need for access ramps and creating a flexible structure that can accommodate a broad range of venue types. When not used for performances, the structure serves as an outdoor gathering space, allowing this public sculpture to take on a new purpose of bringing together people from the different walks of life who traverse the plaza to and from the civic and cultural buildings.
The Crest at Galvez Plaza, designed and constructed in only 20 months, with an extremely limited budget, and under public low-bid procedures, its details are restrained. It serves as a public sculpture in the park that is transformed into a performance and event space for festivals and musical performances. The success of Repentance Park’s larger moves, however, is already clear. It is home to regular musical events, families have adopted its fountain, and the city has initiated the next phase of the Central Green, a renewal of the adjacent City Hall Plaza Sculpture Court. The redesign of Repentance Park is also the first phase of Baton Rouge’s “Central Green” — a network of continuous open space that unites currently disconnected cultural and civic institutions and takes steps to mitigate the division between downtown and the river created by the constructed levee.
Our Tekla Structures model was the basis of all information sharing & project planning, design & field installation collaboration.
