Connector by Richard Serra, 2006

With the construction of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert hall nearing completion, Elizabeth and Henry T. Segerstrom commissioned Richard Serra to create this culpture as a highly visible focal point for the newly expanded Segerstrom Center for the Arts. At 65 feet high, the 360-ton steel artwork is the tallest of Richard Serra's works to date, and is set on a pentagonal ground plan. Constructed on five torqued weatherproofed steel plates that were fabricated on Siegen, Germany, the sculpture was assembled on-site, rising from a twenty-foot position as its base to a four-foot opening at its top. The sculpture is sited on a main axis of the plaza, and visitors are encouraged to walk around it and through it. Inside, the aperture at the top opens to the sky. Serra began a series of vertical, leaning plates, to which this work belongs, in 1971 with a sculpture for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. aptly titled Connector, this challenging and innovative sculpture serves the symbolic function of a unifying centerpiece for the grounds of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.