The Salt Lake City Arts Council has thrown down the gauntlet. They say that at nearly 2,000 feet, Strut is the longest continuous public artwork in Utah. The piece by Seattle-based duo Laura Haddad and Tom Drugan (Haddad|Drugan) runs along the south side of the 400 South Viaduct Trail that connects Poplar Grove to downtown.

It begins—at least from the Poplar Grove side—as an explosion of color: bars of every width and hue stacked and staggered across the fence panels, with smaller dashes of the same colors scattered along the concrete barrier below, as if the composition can’t quite contain itself. Moving toward downtown, the palette cools and thins—blues, teals, and magentas in narrower, more linear bands—before warming again into oranges, rust, and yellow at the downtown end, where larger solid panels open up views of the Wasatch through the fence behind. The palette draws partly from the flock of wild peacocks that have become, improbably and delightfully, part of Poplar Grove’s neighborhood identity—and it’s the Poplar Grove end that bursts with color, inverting the usual assumption about which side of town is the vivid one. The whole walk reads as passage: the colors shift, the forms change in scale and rhythm as you move, and by the time you reach the other end you have a sense of having traveled through something, not just across it.

Courtesy Salt Lake City

Courtesy Salt Lake City

The railroad tracks and I-15 corridor have long divided the city’s west and east sides physically and economically, and the viaduct trail—while providing the connection—hasn’t always been the most inviting route. “The 400 South viaduct used to be an unsafe and unwelcoming place to walk or bike,” said Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “Now, with a protected trail, concrete barrier, and public art, it’s a real connection between neighborhoods.” Community engagement with West Side residents shaped the design throughout, with the concept of connecting the two sides of the city running through the whole project.

The artists were involved in the viaduct’s design team from the start, working alongside engineers, planners, and fabricators. Stacked and staggered fence and concrete barrier elements move along the corridor in an undulating rhythm that nods to the Wasatch Mountains, the Jordan River, and the seasonal color shifts of the Salt Lake landscape.

Strut gives one of the city’s most-traveled corridors a visual identity it never had before—about a third of a mile of color, rhythm, and movement.

In Plain Site

With our In Plain Site byline we feature publicly viewable art, both official and street art, throughout the state of Utah.