Yes, art is an essential facet, part of the glue that makes cities livable.  

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

On the one hand, I think public art is a good idea because it encourages community, etc.

On the other hand, most public art looks like helicopter wrecks, but without the charm.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

The idea that cities need public funding for art to be livable is kind of absurd.  

First, public the money would be far better spent making cities less brutal in the first place, starting with reintroducing more natural elements and taming the automobile, giving more city space over to growing food and plants and less to transporting people in motorized wheelchairs.

Second, many of our cities are awful in great part because the buildings are so awful, not because they lack doodads.  Go to Chicago and look at the beautiful old buildings --- they don't need art as adornment, they are already adorned by their design.  

For example, in Lansing, Michigan, there was a huge concrete "installation" -- one hesitates to call it art -- put on the capital mall between two ginormous concrete box buildings that would have done Albert Speer proud, right near the beautiful old classical capitol.  This "installation" apparently had as its theme a little mathematical joke in that the huge objects  -- a circular disc about one story high and several smaller pieces -- apparently had equivalent volume, or something to that effect.

I always wanted to see the pieces in a setting where you could have had some perspective on them to see if it worked as art.  Instead they dominated the space in a negative way, obstructed the view, and only contributed to making the area feel cold, threatening, and inhumane.  Luckily, the "installation" was removed and never replaced--supposedly because the parking garage below it was leaking.

Far better to spend every available dollar on better buildings, buildings that power themselves and contribute to growing food, than requiring a percentage for art.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but sustainability is beautiful always, and pays for itself many times over.

The 5% Project Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

JMG, don't be a curmudgeon now. I highly doubt that a mural project or an artful wrap on the city buses or what have you is going to take resources away from other initiatives to make cities livable in the sustainable sense.

So some cities have commissioned bad art. That was their mistake. And not everyone is interested in old architecture. I don't care at all about old buildings.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

I think a "half a percent for art" takes exactly 0.5000% of a public buildings' cost and requires that it be spent on art.   Given the extraordinary costs of public buildings these days, I think I would far rather the half percent be devoted to insulation.  So, yes, I think that subsidies for art can take resources away from sustainability.

As for old buildings, my point wasn't that you had to like old buildings -- rather, there are ways to design buildings that don't oppress people and, therefore, don't create the need for ego art projects.  There are ways to use scale, care, and materials to make the building pleasing without ever calling attention to itself or demanding that it be appreciated by you or anyone else.

The 5% Project Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.