As work continues on the new Revere High School at the Wonderland site, plans are in the works for a large art piece to honor those who have donated to the school’s construction.
At last week’s high school building committee meeting, committee members highlighted the design plans for the piece, which would be on the south wall on the second floor in the heart of the school near the cafeteria.
The design working group of the building committee is still working on the final form of the donor wall installation.
“Details are still forthcoming, but the idea is that there is this implied crashing wave, the bubbles that occur when a wave crashes in the ocean, so it is building on the wave concept of the entire building,” said Dawn Guarriello, the project architect and designer from Perkins Eastman.
The proposed size of the wall installation is 60-feet wide by 24-feet tall. Guarriello said the size and the height of the installation and its placement on the second floor wall will give it plenty of visual appeal from across the heart of the school area.
“That’s quite a big space; you can see it directly across from where one enters and exits the auditorium at the top of the community stairs,” she said. “The details we are still working out, but it may be like a third dimension that pops out and has a texture that supports the color. A lot of these circles have colors and textures that relate to nature, so our hope is to tie it all back to Revere and a lot of the history of Revere and the beach and textures and colors that exist in your community.”
Three sizes of the circular bubbles would be used to display the names of people, families, or organizations who have donated to the building of the school.
The building committee agreed that the design team should move forward with more detailed plans on the artwork and how the donor wall artwork will be installed.
“One piece that the team really thought about … was how to maintain the themes we have already done in the design planning process and we liked this particular motif because it’s dynamic,” said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dianne Kelly.
Kelly noted that the complete artwork doesn’t need to be completed before the school opens.
“These bubbles will all be installed so that the artwork is complete,” she said. “Then over the years, somebody could say they want to buy a large-size circle for a loved one or a remembrance; or even because I am new to the Revere community and we could take that piece down, have it engraved … and then put it back up.”
The superintendent said people would not have to decide right away if they wanted to make a donation, noting that the city will be paying off the debt service for the construction well after the building opens. The money from the donations would be placed in the high school building stabilization account.
“The other thing that I will point out is that the piece of art itself will have all different size circles, but we tried to pick a few that we thought might be somewhat affordable to people, but also represent a significant donation to the school,” said Kelly.
The proposed donation levels on the concept art presented at the building committee meeting were $1,000; $2,500; and $5,000.
School and building committee member Stacey Bronsdon-Rizzo said the concept presented by Guarriello best represented the new high school being in Revere.