About the Design

Andrew Klein and Mark Baugh-Sasaki are a team of artists/students currently studying at Carnegie-Mellon University. As a collaborative effort the two transformed the blank vessel into a metaphor for the process of renewal that is the focus of our city's social planning efforts at the dawn of the new century.

As we approach the vessel supplied, we see a metaphor between the physical dinosaur and the city of Pittsburgh, which as its era of industry fades has become sort of a dinosaur itself. The dinosaur (with 3 horns like our 3 rivers) is divided through coloration as a city fractured by a lack of identity for the future. Encasing the animal is steel scaffolding which mimics the fossil structure of the animal and again references the industries of our city.

The most dynamic part of the installation will be our form of renewal. Since the Torosaurus will be living outside, growing from the front half to the back half will be ivy that will take over the framework and transform the sculpture. It will cross the two halves via a bridge constructed as part of the framework, which will be nearly identical to those on the north shore, and will represent the closure of this social effort as the ivy slowly crosses it.