Many of our readers have been asking us about the visible fading and condition of the flower sculpture on Segovia and Biltmore Way, by artist Alice Aycock.
We have confirmed that the city reached out to the artist to inquire about the current state of the artwork. Ms. Aycock made a recent site visit to Coral Gables and inspected the piece. She informed city staff that the fading present was to be expected.
Coral Gables says it will begin maintenance of the million-dollar artwork within the next few weeks but will not address the fading. They will work on touching up the rusting metal and seals. In addition, the water nozzles will be replaced so the sculpture can mist water as originally intended.
OMG these sculptures are better than what this “olde city” deserves. This not colonial Boston or NYC, it’s a Florida city from the 1920s. Winter Park is older.
Get a grip, all the old decorations around the city are fakes. The city was started by a “city founder” was a boom time Developer used a black diaspora slave labor force to plowed over a rare rock pine forest to lay out misspelled street names, streets that are misspelled even in foreign languages that he copied from a dime store novel.
The artist is internationally recognized it’s the city that’s a fraud behind the veneer of respectability and gentility .
We fought hard to take this atrocity down – unfortunately – we did not win
What a waste of our taxpayers money in addition to not depicting what our city is all about – Mediterranean – historic…….. Really shameful
For all you Cason Lovers out there, he’s the one to blame!
So, here’s the thing, the vast majority of residents hate this. Like the City of Miami recognized their sunk cost for the Marlin’s sculpture and removed it, so too should the City of Coral Gables. Don’t sink good money after bad. Be done with it. What I never could figure out was why have a “front facing” sculpture on a circle? Unless you’re in the exact spot at the front of the circle, all you see is what I call the “butt” of the flower. Just a whole bunch of jumbled metal around most of the circle.
Dear neighbors, find out who voted for spending $1 million of your tax money to buy this monstrosity and send them a bill in the next election.
Maybe it is time to accept a mistake, take the sculptures down, sell them in an auction for pennies on the dollars, and replace them for something suitable for the City Beautiful.
It was very unfortunate that the art In public spaces board did not have the right vision for our historic city. A beautiful kapok tree would have been perfect and would have cost a lot less.
These fountains are totally out of context and the cost has been absurd. Very sad!!
Since these “ sculptures “ went up I asked myself the following question, how did someone actually get a permit for that ?!!!
The consensus seems to be “We don’t like them.” I kinda do, but does anyone else recognize that the gigantic big round one is a Passion Flower blossom. In Spanish it is called the Granadilla ! I still like the old slippers on the Coco Plum Circle.
We can only hope that they continue to fade, wither, rust, rot and die so we can be done with those eyesores! QUICKLY!
Personally , I don”t care for this kind of artwork..Perhaps , it belongs in Miami Beach but it falls short for Coral Gables…It does not go with our old city style.. I think that a fountain or statue would be more suited.
Any chance we can put the sculptures’ question to a vote by the citizens at the next election?
These so called sculptures are anything but art. They really seem like giant robots taken out of a sci fi movie. Sorry, but they really do look tacky and reflect poor taste in whoever picked them for our City beautiful. So sad.
I have never seen the big one misting water as supposedly intended.
A complete WASTE of taxpayers money…..Can’t we just send them back to the artist….. The general consensus is that both of these “sculptures” are eyesores…..These metal OBJECTS do not belong in The City Beautiful!!!!! Get a grip to the City of CG….people hate them and I’m one of them. What in the world were you guys thinking!!!! They are atrocious and certainly don’t add any beauty to our CITY BEAUTIFUL. Lived in CG for 60+ years and George Merrick is most likely turning over. How bout’ using all the Coral Rock around our city to build a UNIQUE looking fountain…Granada Fountain as one person stated is a fabulous example. Recently I was asked by one of our commissioners what I thought about the flower sculpture on Segovia and my comment was “The City had to find something to do with all our taxpayers money!!! There was a moment of silence and a look of shock in a very crowded room of people. A Million plus bucks……I could have come up with something better. Keep putting these sculptures up around town and the City of CG won’t be called The City Beautiful anymore ….people will refer to us as “The City with all those UGLY METAl THINGS!!!!!!!!!! Everyone’s got different tastes, but surely something more suitable could have been constructed!!!!
SCULPTURES”
I think they look great now! Leave them alone!
I absolutely agree. Those flowers do not represent the architecture and feeling of our city beautiful. It is a terrible waste of our money. The price was really high that it even feels disrespectful considering other more important needs the city has.
Regardless of the money already spent on these metal sculptures, which of course is gone by now, you mean the city has to pay for regular maintenance on top of that? For crying out loud, they even haven’t been there that long for this to be happening. Who pays for this? Us, from our tax payer money? Take them down, & put a cement fountain there instead or even simple beautiful palm trees w/orchids would do the job quite nicely & FL nature would take care of them w-no maintenance required.
Those sculptures fall way short of beautifying coral gables. I haven’t met one person that likes them. Seriously hideous. Whatever committee approved them was wayyyyyy off target. Definitely Unfortunate. How long do we have to look at them?
Regardless of the money already spent on these metal sculptures, which of course is gone by now, you mean the city has to pay for regular maintenance on top of that? For crying out loud, they even haven’t been there that long for this to be happening. Who pays for this? Us, from our tax payer money? Take them down, & put a cement fountain there instead or even simple beautiful palm trees w/orchids would do the job quite nicely & FL nature would take care of them w-no maintenance required.
A disgrace in deed. Those metal sculptures do not belong in City Beautiful. We want to keep our Fountains and sculptures like the beautiful ones around the city that beautifully goes with our arquitectura.
Can’t we just send them back to the artist
They just don’t fit where there located move them to Fairchild or Montgomery gardens
A complete WASTE of taxpayers money only to satisfy a very small group. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, that handful was very influential. About 5000 homeowners signed a petition against it. These petitions were collected by a handful of concerned conscientious caring resident volunteers talking to their friends and neighbors with No TV ads, political signs, big media coverage etc.
Our wishes were smugly denied, almost as though we were a nuisance.
That was a tremendously significant taxpayer response since only about 8000 total residents even show up to vote in our elections. Our “Representatives” in this “Democratic Republic” certainly don’t represent US as much as they represent special interests!
There is a general consensus that this “sculptures” are an eyesore. Yet the city ignore the public’s opinion. What can be done to take that horror down?
I do not feel that George Merrick would have envisioned this type of “art” in our public spaces. I realize that it is hard to please everyone, but why not allow artist to showcase their creations on a traveling basis so we don’t have to maintain them on borrowed money from taxpayers. There is enough “yard “art in Miami already.
Both flowers are an eyesore. The city over paid for such an eyesore that’s never worked as intended. It should be removed and replaced with a more acceptable fountain like the one near the Venetian pool or a sculpture more in line with the city’s character. It’s a disgrace.
These out of town artists, landscape architects, designed have no real understanding of our climate conditions, our plants, or climate needs. Really next time please hire people from tropical areas like the caribean, SE Asia, Queensland Australia, not the fashionable northern or Western USA artists of the moment.
Of course our high calcium content water clogs misting sprays, of course with 99% humidity a mist is worthless as a cooling mechanism and nearly invisible in our high temperature humid air.
If your from southern India this would be common knowledge. It rains 60 inches a year in So FL, this is the same volume as monsoon India, we ain’t living in SoCal folks. Rust is everherre, Everything rots, Mold is in the air! Even “rust proof” stainless steel rusts in the tropics, just go to Jakarta or Rio to see for yourself!
Unfortunately it’s the rust and mold in these “artist” brains so they can’t seem to understand our contexts.