Since 2005, GLAVOVIC STUDIO has worked closely with the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale. This ongoing relationship grew out of the desire to forge a new and vibrant connection between the museum’s original Edward Larrabee Barnes building and the downtown Las Olas District. Several thoughtful insertions and upgrades have been both subtle and sculptural, driven by GLAVOVIC STUDIO’S vision to reinforce the mission of the Museum as the leading arts Institution in downtown Fort Lauderdale. In addition to the interior renovations, Margi Glavovic Nothard was commissioned to designed two art/urban interventions Bridge_Stair and Threshold. Bridge_Stair, a monumental sculpture affords visitors a view of the New River. The two-story stainless steel and polycarbonate-panel sculpture was conceived as a viewing platform and shadow play on the existing museum exterior walls. The project arose out of the immediate program necessity for an entrance stair to the second level terrace for the King Tutankhamen exhibit in 2006. The urban and architectural strategy for the stair/sculpture was to reinforce the primary role of a downtown museum, creating a vibrant public plaza and supporting the existing building entry sequence. Movement, landscape, and form are celebrated in this intervention as people occupying the stair cast shadows and animate the museum’s exterior walls. Threshold is large scale site specific artwork conceptualizing water and surface, inscription and materiality through the lens of Florida’s natural environments. Sited on Las Olas Boulevard, the installation reinforces the urban edge and thoughtfully resolves accessibility through a sandblasted ground plane drawing/bench and eco resin photo montage/railing floating above a blue 7’ x 44’ glowing glass box. Additional native grasses planted around the work provide a slower and softer transition between the city’s sidewalk and the Museum’s plaza. Photography by Robin Hill.
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