When the Purple Line opens in 2022 (that’s the plan, anyway), all its 21 stations will have an individual visual identity thanks to Maryland’s Art-In-Transit program. You can see all the station designs (many of them still not finalized) here; below, you’ll see a selection of the sights along the new line’s 16-mile route, as well as some of the artists’ comments.
Bethesda
Artist: Elena Manferdini
Lyttonsville
Artists: David Hess and Curtis Woody
Hess’s design for this station calls for repurposing the Talbot Avenue bridge’s steel girders. The Purple Line endangered the bridge, which has great significance in local history. Hess proposes attaching water-jet-etched steel panels that show family photographs to the girders. Woody’s design calls for a mixed-media artwork in photo-collage style transferred to ceramic tile.
Silver Spring-Library
Artist: Andrea Dezsö
Adelphi Road-UMUC-UMD
Artists: Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton
Lee and Allbritton’s design will incorporate a data visualization of student headcount at University of Maryland University College locations in the US as well as in Europe and Asia.
College Park Metro-UMD
Artist: Lynn Basa
Basa’s design pays tribute to College Park Airport, the oldest continually operating airport in the world. The airport’s red-and-white motif is repurposed here as a way-finding aid.
Riverdale Park-Kenilworth Ave.
Artist: Mikyoung Kim
Kim’s “Pendulum Gateway” is planned as an interactive sculpture—”As people sit in the folded seats they cause the columns to sway and reflect a play of colored light above them,” the artist says.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
