In addition to increasing awareness of the parklands and restoring habitat across the site, the bridge improvements symbolize a new beginning for this part of Los Angeles County.
The bridge panels are designed to reflect the ongoing landscape transformation at the Conservancy, as the tensions of recreation and oil production, in the highly disturbed landscape are resolved and ecologies are restored.
The art functionally renovates the bridge, accommodates pedestrian traffic over the bridge, and serves as an iconic presence for all those who pass under the bridge on La Cienega Boulevard.
The open pattern of the panels is a conceptual mapping whose line work merges the broad landscape patterns and the image of the skin of the small Western Fence Lizard, part of its original California coastal sedge ecology.
The gateway will be a featured portion of the regional Park to Playa Trail that connects the eastern and western ridgelines of the Baldwin Hills and continues seven miles all the way to the Ballona Creek, wetlands and Santa Monica Bay.
