Title:  Circulo Vivo, Living Circle


Site:  3228 W. Palmer Boulevard, Chicago


Artists:  Lynn Takata and John Pitman Weber


Community Participants: Youths of Logan Square Boys and Girls Club


Sponsors: Chicago Mural Group and Logan Square Boys and Girls Club


Year:  1981


Scale:  Fountain and sculpted benches in a garden plaza


Materials:  Glass Tile and Concrete


Information:  The centerpiece of the Logan Square Boys and Girls Club’s Barnet Hodes Sculpture Garden, this sculptural bench and fountain project holds the distinction of being the city’s first freestanding, community-built artwork-- a feat that involved the use of reinforced concrete, landscape design, and mechanical and electrical engineering. The undulating seats evoke the shapes of reclining figures: the glass mosaics in the fountain basin recall Taino designs and symbols. The form of the work was inspired by Pedro Silva’s Grant’s Tomb Mosaics (1972-1974) and Antonio Gaudi’s Güell Park ceramic-fragment-encrusted benches (1900-1914), as well as by the work of David Harding in Glenrothes, Scotland, who introduce the Chicago Mural Group to concrete as a community art medium in the 1970s.