From artists’ or architects’ imaginations and sketches spring amazing creations. But as many people admire the finished products appearing in neighborhoods or art galleries, they forget that there is a crucial step between conception and display.
That’s where the engineers and welders and fabricators come in. And at Duroweld Co. Inc. in Lake Bluff, the craftsmen and engineers have ventured into the genre of public art in a big way, shaping massive pieces of steel into equally massive works of art.
Although the approximately 30 workers at Duroweld are used to dealing with custom orders that could range from fabricating light poles to mending lawn mowers, a new project has given them a higher profile in the branch of more decorative ornamental work.
The company’s handiwork is on display along North Halsted Street in Chicago as futuristic pylons, large planters topped with latticework and oversized street markers have sprung up to designate an area of the city populated by businesses serving the gay community.
Company officials concede that the project was quite a departure from their usual assignments, which are more likely to include factory items, such as large vats. The company had worked a handful of times before with artists to create large outdoor sculptures, but that was the extent of its involvement in such highly creative work, and the company had never done anything this controversial.
“This is kind of a whole new thing for Duroweld,” said Lars Henriksen, Duroweld’s engineering sales manager and a Buffalo Grove resident. “Never have we really tackled a significant architectural and ornamental project.”
The project provided Duroweld with an opportunity to flex more creative muscles and show off skills that many customers might not have realized the company could provide, according to Steve Austin of Northfield, Duroweld’s owner.
“It’s been a good project; it highlights a lot of our capabilities that aren’t normally highlighted,” Austin said. “We can do all the operations in-house, particularly high-quality painting.”
Austin’s son, Rich, the company’s general manager and a Highland Park resident, said that most of the functional work the company creates doesn’t get a great deal of attention once it is installed. “A lot of times, you build a machine and there’s a lot of work you never see,” Rich Austin said.
Duroweld officials became aware of the opportunity to bid on the project through contacts with electrical contractors who also are part of the $3.2 million renovation, Henriksen said.
The revamping of the North Side neighborhood also includes installation of new trees, wider sidewalks and increased lighting sources.
Duroweld’s portion of the contract came to roughly $500,000, according to Steve Austin.
That figure is one of the largest single orders the company has received, which means the company is aggressively pursuing other ornamental work.
“It’s fun, and it’s profitable,” Henriksen said.
Being named the project’s low bidder, however, did not guarantee them the business, according to Rich Austin. “We put a fair amount of effort into hosting a tour for them,” he said of city officials who came out to look at the 25,000-square-foot facility, located along an industrial section of Rockland Road. “The city was very concerned about getting references on past projects” to find out more about Duroweld, a company that beat out a more experienced firm for the job, he added.
Edward Windhorst, an architect with the Chicago firm of DeStefano and Partners, was the designer for the North Halsted streetscape. He found it easy to work with the employees of Duroweld during his visits to the shop every 10 days or so to check on progress.
“Architectural steel is a special area of fabrication that takes a lot of skill at welding carefully. They are at the highest level of what we call ornamental work,” Windhorst said.
Once the city saw what the company could do, it was the beginning of a great working relationship from both perspectives, according to Rich Austin and Greg Harris, who served as the city’s project manager for the North Halsted streetscape.
“We’re very lucky to have gotten Duroweld” for the job, Harris said. “It’s wonderful. It is something that will stand out. To be able to have the vision to know that it will fit into the urban landscape, that’s a great skill,” Harris said.
Installation of the various ornamental pieces of the project has been spread over several weeks this fall, and a formal lighting ceremony of the work is scheduled for late November, Harris said. “These are things that are going to be part of the community for 70 years,” he predicted.
When completed, the North Halsted Street area will join other neighborhoods, such as Chinatown and Greektown, in being recognized as a unique part of the city’s makeup. Those projects are all part of a city program called Neighborhoods Alive, a general beautification program.
At each end of the neighborhood on Halsted, a 25-foot-tall area marker will let passersby know they have entered “NORTHALSTED,” as the inscription on the top of the 5-ton steel structures spells out. In lettering near the structure’s bottom, the words “Lakeview,” the neighborhood’s broader definition, also will be visible. The markers will stand 10 blocks apart.
Along the sidewalks on each side of Halsted, 20 steel sculptures also will be displayed. The candle-shaped pieces are futuristic; some people are reminded of spaceships when they see them. They stand 23 feet tall and are distinctively decorated. Each of the sculptures is painted in a deep gold, and six rings in the colors of the rainbow appear on every structure.
The rainbow has been adapted as a symbol for gays, and the circular bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet are echoed by banners that appear in the front of some of the area’s businesses.
“The colors were very specific as part of the project; they were researched very carefully” to fit in with those rainbows already on display in the neighborhood, Rich Austin said.
The colors required not only research but also a fair amount of time on the part of Duroweld’s employees.
Each piece was hauled into Duroweld’s “booth,” actually a high-ceilinged room where workers in protective suits that make them look like spacemen hooked up to an outside air source applied the epoxy paint and a special anti-graffiti coating to the pieces.
The pieces required 11 coatings, and Duroweld employees had to wait a minimum of 24 hours between coats.
“It takes very good painting ability to make sure that it doesn’t run or get blotchy,” Windhorst noted.
About eight workers were involved in the project, Rich Austin said. But the unusual nature of the project piqued the curiosity of all the employees, who would watch the transformation of the steel.
Because of the height of many of the pieces, the largest portions were welded and painted while secured horizontally to dollies.
Fred Burts Jr. a welder/fabricator with Duroweld for four years, worked on the area markers and the rainbow sculptures. This job made the workers more aware of the aesthetic aspect of their work, Burts said.
“The visibility’s pretty high, so you had to put more into it and be pretty artistic with welds,” said Burts, a North Chicago resident.
Fellow employees used to marvel at the size of the pieces being put together on the shop’s concrete floor, where the sounds of air tools such as sanders and air grinders reverberate off the walls, Burts recalled.
“We see different stuff all the time, but this was on a grand scale. . . . All of the guys in the shop were interested each step of the way.”
The markers and sculptures decorate an area that is home to a range of businesses, from restaurants and insurance agencies to theaters and bars.
“It establishes this neighborhood as more of a permanent home,” said one man, a gay business owner who declined to give his name. “These statues in a way place us here. Hopefully, we will not have to move.”
The businessman, however, was not entirely pleased with the new sculptures.
“What I hear from my customers, and what I think myself, is that they are too futuristic, too rocketlike,” he said.
A female property owner in the neighborhood, who was also reluctant to give her name, said she didn’t understand what purpose the sculptures serve.
“I think they could have spent our taxes in a better way,” she said.
One portion of the project that the woman approved of was the installation of large concrete planters with black painted steel trellises rising about 8 feet from the rim of the oversized planters. They will be filled by the city with winter plantings, then come spring block clubs and merchants associations will take over planting and maintaining them. There are a total of 20 planters, each bearing the name of the cross street on which it is located.
Yellow ribbons have been tied to the trellis portion of one planter, and people gathered around a planter not long ago to place photos and candles on the structure as a tribute to Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered in Wyoming in October.
“They just spontaneously made a memorial,” Henriksen said.
Windhorst said it is always rewarding to see his work used in such a manner.
“It’s gratifying to see your stuff used in a way that was not intended but works for the community.”
