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S.Alt City Mural in Syracuse Blends Industrial Heritage With Modern Technology

S.Alt City Mural in Syracuse Blends Industrial Heritage With Modern Technology

This Syracuse mural project, S.Alt City, was sent to AN over the summer just as we were preparing our live coverage of the Venice Biennale and went unreported in the paper. But the mural by Cheng and Snyder Architects is a smart project that deserves more attention than it has received. The mural depicts a local waterside salt barge that alludes back to Syracuse’s industrial heritage but it also imbedded QR codes throughout the work. These QR codes are becoming more ubiquitous in the world of art making and were in fact used in the Russian pavilion at the recent Venice Biennale in a grandiose and very expensive installation in their pavilion.

In Syracuse the young architects cleverly and cheaply utilized the QR codes to send smart phone viewers to links for contemporary arts organizations in the Syracuse region. The connection between the old industrial fabric of the city and the contemporary use of codes and cultural facilities and organizations to help bring the city back to its former livability and economic strength. It is exactly the type of “art” young architects should be engaged with today.

The mural is in downtown Syracuse on a west facing wall of Lemp jewelers (on Fayette Street just west of Warren). The mural is permanent and was funded by a seed grant from the Syracuse University School of Architecture (one of Dean Mark Robbin‘s last initiatives before he left his deanship ) as well as a larger grant from the Connective Corridor.


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