Meet Venus. She just moved to San Francisco. She's super tall, tough as steel, and noticeably gorgeous.
Venus is the 92-foot (that's nine stories, folks) statue in the new public plaza located in the heart of the four-building Trinity Place apartment complex at Eighth and Mission Streets in SoMa. The shiny, stainless steel statue is a modern rendition of the famous Venus de Milo. Landlord and housing developer Angelo Sangiacomo commissioned the statue from Denver-based artist Lawrence Argent as the centerpiece of Trinity's "Angelo Piazza."
Sangiacomo passed away at 91-years-old this past December. The statue and plaza remain his final mark on San Francisco.
The art-filled plaza comes to us thanks not only to Sangiacomo, but to a San Francisco law that requires developers to allocate at least 1% of each project's budget to public art. The developer can either donate that money directly to the city's Public Art Trust Fund as overseen by San Francisco's Art Commission, or they can design and incorporate public art into the project.
Sangiancomo decided to bring his love of classical Italian art to San Francisco, devoting much of his energy to the piazza's planning and design.
Weighing more than 50 tons, Venus was shipped to America in 70 pieces by a team of Chinese artisans. The statue is mostly hollow, but the narrow bottom has been filled with concrete for stability and the whole thing is anchored six stories down in the parking garage.
“There isn’t a moment when I’m out on the plaza where I’m not wishing that (Angelo) was here standing next to me looking at it in person," Trinity Properties CEO Walter Schmidt told the Chronicle.
The $5 million, one-acre Piazza Angelo is open every day from 8am to 6pm. Venus is one of many art pieces in the plaza, but at just 20-feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty, she's definitely the largest.
“The gift that Angelo has given the city is the experience of art," Schmidt continued. "It is not a decoration. It’s a place, a space that people can come and enjoy a respite from the bedlam of the city. That is what is magical.”
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