Bay View Station is a piece by George Trakas created in 1987, featured on WWU’s north campus. It’s located just under the Performing Arts Center, next to the Viking Union’s doorway for the Underground Coffee Shop. The piece itself is a construction that resembles a dock, featuring wooden slats held up by metal beams. Upon closer inspection there are rocks placed between these slats, seemingly to allow steps up onto the piece from underneath the platforms. there’s also an elongate set of steel plates stretching from the top of the piece and running down from campus onto the street below. The entire piece also overlooks Bellingham Bay, as well as the houses in between campus and the water.
The piece itself was recently re-touched, with a fresh coat of paint. It’s a very stark color reflecting the green of the landscape, even differing from the colors present in the architecture of the School’s buildings.
The artist, George Trakas, is a sculptor from Quebec, born in 1944. His pieces are generally site-specific, to the extent that he refers to himself as an ‘environmental sculptor’, working with the environment he’s given to create unique pieces. His work is very architectural, consistently showing pieces resembling large docks in landlocked locations.
Part of what brings attention to this piece is that it resembles a dock, but it considerably far away from any major bodies of water. However, it does instill a great view of the bay. This could have been a contributing factor as to why Trakas chose to construct this piece here, and put it together in this manner. It challenges how we perceive the construct and has us think about what it represents in a new way.
The steel sheets extending down the piece, from the University to the street below seem to signify a sense of connection, linking the University to the community that it is intrinsically linked to. It’s through this that a message of the piece can be gleamed – that we are to look at our community around us, and remember that we are a part of it.
Bay View Station itself offers a lot to the think about, and it also provides a useful location to sit and study, distanced from the main campus with a view of the bay. It’s presence is not very bold, but it has layers of complexity that can be seen from looking at the piece closer. It provides function and form, and while it may be out of the way in terms of locating the piece, it provides its own atmosphere that is actually added to by it’s semi-isolation.
Bay View Station by George Trakas
Group 2
Samantha Hildmann – Photography and research
Evan Astrue – Group Admin, research
Kyle Mullins – Panorama Video, on-site reasearch
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