The internationally acclaimed artist Sanford Biggers will create a 30-foot tall sculpture inspired by 19th century quilt patterns for Google’s Chicago headquarters, the tech giant announced Wednesday.
Called Vector, the angular, winding sculpture will be composed of glazed terra cotta panels — a contrast to the glassy and rounded headquarters and its now-muted exterior colors brought about by the building’s current renovation.
“The quilt is interesting to me because it is sort of the repository of American culture, in a lot of ways,” said Biggers, 56, a Los Angeles artist who lived in Chicago while earning his master’s at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1990s.
“There’s also rumored stories of [quilts] being used along the Underground Railroad as a coded symbol, but I’m also very interested in the geometry and the pattern and the craftsmanship of the objects themselves,” Biggers said. “Vector is actually handmade tiles that I’ve made with existing quilts in mind.”
Google Vice President and Chicago Site Lead Mike Miller said the sculpture “will be a continuation of the artist’s celebrated Codex series, in which Biggers explores the hidden meanings and sacred geometries found within antique quilts.”
Miller said the artist worked with the 19th century quilt collections of local institutions such as the Illinois State Museum and the Chicago History Museum, in a bid to make sure the patterns of Vector’s glazed terra cotta panels reflect the state’s history.
The sculpture, expected to be completed next year, will be set in place on the plaza near where Jean Dubuffet’s 29-foot tall Monument with Standing Beast stood during the building’s previous life as the state-owned James R. Thompson Center.
“I walked past that Dubuffet many, many, many times [to go into] the building,” Biggers said. “Used the train there many times. So to be asked back into the city to do a very large, significant, permanent piece is a huge honor just in general … but also to try to fill-in the shoes of one of my favorite pieces is sort of daunting, but at the same time, a challenge that I am very lucky to embark on.”
The work also joins Downtown’s globally-known public art Dream Team that includes the Picasso at Daley Plaza, Alexander Calder’s Flamingo in Federal Plaza and The Sun, the Moon and One Star by artist Joan Miró at 69 W. Washington St.
Vector would be the group’s first sculpture designed by a Black artist.
“I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch,” — Biggers laughs a little here — “to be in that corridor with those other artists who I have looked up to and learned from.”
Google also released a few new images depicting its headquarters’ renovated atrium.
Renderings show the atrium’s ground floor — where the food court used to be — will have a circular terraced seating area with retail space.
And Google said it’s restoring the original rosette at the center of the floor. The company had planned to replace the design element.
“A new terrazzo will be poured and highlight the craftsmanship of the original design,” a Google spokesperson said.
The atrium’s original elevator glass wall and cabs will be restored, with additional artwork to come, the spokesperson added.
A previous plan would have created a new terrazzo atrium floor and placed an artistic decorative skin — maybe made of vinyl and stained glass — over the atrium’s exposed 17-story elevator system.
But the project hit the skids in January when the artists hired for the commission, Judy Chicago and her husband Donald Woodman, walked away due to creative differences with Google.
The atrium space has been but one point of concern and interest for preservationists and building-watchers because Google ditched the Helmut Jahn-designed building’s Thompson Center-era glazing and Flash Gordon-like color scheme and design flourishes for design that — in the renderings, at least — feels more corporate by comparison.
The $280 million renovation is expected to finish in 2027.