Alice Lane Precinct: Colourful Staircase Artwork

WORDS Lindi Brownell Meiring IMAGES Dharmaratna Saraswati

Johannesburg-based architect and artist Lorenzo Nassimbeni is behind a colourful new urban artwork, which can now be seen in the Alice Lane Precinct in Johannesburg’s Sandton.

Made up of graphic patterned tiles in a bold colour palette of yellow, black, red and white, the artwork was created not only to entice people to the shared plaza located at the top of the staircase, but to brighten up the area, which is made up of predominantly grey tones. Looking to the surrounding architecture, Lorenzo created a collection of arrow-like shapes, encouraging visitors to walk up the stairs to the plaza above.

For Lorenzo, the artwork is not an imposed object in the space, but rather is the space itself. The piece can be viewed in a multitude of ways: from far it looks almost 2-dimensional, at a closer vantage point, the “image” tilts, while from above, the graphics start to break up and fragment.

Lorenzo collaborated closely with Abland (client), PARAGON Architects (architects of the building), Parts & Labour (artwork project manager) and Counterspace (conceptual graphic presentation) in the realisation of this project.

You can view more of Lorenzo’s work at lorenzonassimbeni.com.