Source: City of Richardson.
carousel (kar-uh-sel) noun.
1. An amusement ride where you go around and around and end up where you started
2. An hour's deliberation by the City Council about public art
The Richardson City Council spent almost an hour talking about a single proposed public art piece for the new City Hall plaza. They pitched to each other various alternative designs and placements, but ended up with six of the seven agreeing to support what the selection panel of experts recommended in the first place, a design called Carousel placed between the new City Hall and the existing fountain.
It reminded me of the quote attributed to Winston Churchill, "Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted."
Councilmember Ken Hutchenrider pitched the offered alternative design called Music Kiosk. He said, "If the Richardson band and other events are occurring, they could occur underneath this music kiosk."
Maybe Ken Hutchenrider never attended a Richardson Community Band concert on the Fountain Plaza in the summer. The band sits against the library, the audience sits in the grassy area between the library and the fountain, and the setting sun in the west is blocked by the library. Because of all that, it works fine. What won't work fine is moving band concerts over to the east side of the plaza by new City Hall. The Music Kiosk might make for a photogenic backdrop, but the audience will be sitting in the Texas summer sun and the band will have the setting sun in their eyes.
Councilmember Joe Corcoran was equivocal, but sided with Hutchenrider's idea of trying to turn an art piece into a bandstand. He said, "We're spending a lot of money on public art, and maybe it should be something that is functional and beautiful, not just extremely beautiful. That's where my head is at."
Trying to turn an art piece into a bandstand is how great products are ruined. It's called feature creep. You end up with a solution that doesn't work well as either.
Hutchenrider's idea did have one good side effect. It revealed that no one, when designing the site plan, had thought through one simple question: where will the Richardson Community Band's summer concerts happen? City Manager Don Magner said, "You can set up and activate any part of this, but there's no part of this that is going to provide, Mayor Pro Tem, what you just described, which is a turnkey place for someone to perform." Why isn't there such a place? No one asked. I had been assuming all along that groups will come and perform where they always have performed in the past — over there on that concrete platform next to the Library. If that's not going to work any more, Magner needs to spell out an alternative, now before all the concrete is poured.
Council member Jennifer Justice liked Carousel, but didn't like the location. She said, "As a piece of art, I think that Carousel is better. My struggle remains the same. I think that from a scale standpoint and a placement standpoint, for me, it's just too much in that space." It's not compatible with the "vision of the two buildings talking to each other."
Council member Arefin Shamsul also didn't like the location. He said, "Location wise, I prefer the lawn site. That would activate another big area." Sure, some people will walk over there to see what that big artwork is, but saying it will "activate" that other green space is like moving into a new house and saying the empty bedroom can be "activated" by putting a new painting on the wall in there.
If you think Carousel is wrong for the location between City Hall and the Library, then the design should be rejected. It should not be relocated to an open green space that has had zero thought about its future uses.
I have to say I agree with why Justice thinks Carousel is wrong in its proposed location. It's too big. But so what? She's a lawyer. I am a retired software manager. What do we know? I'm smart enough to know that I'm not an artist. Trust the artist. Trust the art chosen by the selection panel of artists. Giving power to a committee of non-artists is not the way to create great art.
Mayor Amir Omar had the same opinion. After speaking with members of the Arts Commission, he said, "I'm not an expert in this, but I'd love for us to consider letting the experts take this one...Their consensus was, you know, put the paint brush back in the hand of the artist and stop trying to do art as a group."
Ken Hutchenrider pushed back, demonstrating how the Dunning-Kruger effect works (a cognitive bias where people with moderate knowledge in a domain overestimate their competence). He said, "I understand your comments about relying on the experts, etc, etc. But every meeting we have we'll have the CPC vote seven nothing on something, and we go against it." I didn't think this was a point that supports Hutchenrider's argument. My takeaway would have been, instead of feeling justified in overruling the Arts Commission, that we should appoint more subject-matter experts to the CPC also and then rely more on their expert opinions instead of overuling their 7-0 votes. Having the power to overrule experts doesn't mean you have the wisdom to do it.
Dan Barrios summed up my thinking when he said, "I must say, I'm feeling a little, I guess irritation or frustration. I'm not sure which is the right word there. If we move this location, this changes the spirit of this. I think it changes the spirit of what has been discussed previously in the green space. And we're basically redesigning not just this space, but the green space on the south end of this. And it feels like a lot at this point. I feel like this and the previous council has talked about this more than we've had discussion around the actual city hall."
The city council seemed to have talked themselves into an impasse. But when Mayor Omar asked for a nodding of heads as to which option was preferred by the council, he found out there were six members agreeing with the first option, that is, the original Carousel art piece in its original location. The Carousel spins, but it returns to its starting position.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
"Carousel turning,
Council spins in circles too
back where it began."
— h/t ChatGPT
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