Public Art at CLE: Part 2-A Controversial Sculpture

Clarence E. Van Duzer’s large, aerodynamic abstract steel sculpture, Global Flight and Celebration, commissioned for Cleveland Hopkins Airport's 50th anniversary and completed in 1976, shown here in its current location at the airport's exit. (Google Street View)

This is the second article in a series exploring the history of public art at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE). The previous article examined the original 1929 terminal and the mid-century modern terminal from 1956, designed for the early jet age. This article will explore one of the most controversial public art pieces in Cleveland's history as well as some design features of the new terminal from the 1970s.

The 1970s Terminal

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport began a years-long expansion and renovation project in October 1974. The program included a total architectural facelift, extensive relocation and expansion of ticketing and baggage claim facilities, expansion of the roadways to separate arriving and departing passengers, and the addition of upper boarding levels to the North (now A) and West (now B) concourses. Keith E. White, chief project architect of the firm Richard L. Bowen & Associates, was responsible for the design.

Fascinating architectural model of a renovated and expanded Hopkins airport from about 1973. It shows an East or D concourse, albeit connected to the main terminal by a people mover system rather than a tunnel connected to the South (now C) Concourse that was eventually built in 1999. Note all the widebody aircraft!(Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

The exterior of the boomerang-shaped terminal was done in natural shades of aluminum and concrete to reflect Cleveland’s "hard-nosed, industrial” character, chief designer Michael Benjamin said. “It’s a beautiful new airport.”

Mayor Ralph J. Perk lays the cornerstone for the new terminal building at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on November 24, 1976. (Cleveland Memory Project)

Colors were designed to guide people through the air­port. Blue was used on the upper level of terminal for departing passengers and blue signs directed motorists to the upper roadway. A yellow-gold color code was used for arrivals and in the lower baggage claim level as well as in signs directing drivers to the lower roadway.

The two-level entrance to the new terminal showing the gold and blue color scheme along with the late 1970s era airport logo, a stylized C-L-E. (Postcard in the author's private collection)

The South Terminal at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, taken on June 22, 1977, a few months after it opened on April 2, 1977, as the first phase of the airport's $60+ million expansion and modernization project. The sleek design lacked any ornamentation. (Cleveland Memory Project)

An interior view of the upper departure or ticketing level of the new South Terminal that housed United and Northwest Orient Airlines ticket counters, April 6, 1977. Note the wall in the distance where the rest of the terminal was still under construction. The North Terminal opened on August 4, 1978. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

A view of the center of the new ticketing level in December 1977, with a construction wall in the background behind which the North Terminal was still under construction. Note the abundant use of planters and how light and airy the terminal was. (Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

A view of the new North Terminal departure level, ca. 1978. To the left is the main lobby, where today's Central security checkpoint is located. The new ticketing level's blue color scheme is clearly visible. Note how uncluttered the terminal was. (Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

Arriving at the top of escalators to the center of the departure/ticketing level is seen in this screen shot from the 1980 film One Trick Pony. Sadly, only four of the airlines then serving CLE at that time, Air Canada, American, Delta, and United, are still in business. (Accessed via YouTube)

American Airlines' Gate 6/6A on the new North Concourse at CLE prior to its opening, taken January 11, 1979. Note the carpet with the ingenious CLE logo, the plastic-covered seats, and the Allegheny Airlines gate in the background. Today, this is gate A5. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

Global Flight and Celebration

One highly contentious piece of public art was surreptitiously commissioned to grace the outside of the new terminal. Clarence E. Van Duzer (1920-2009) completed a monumental 15-ton stainless steel abstract sculpture at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in 1976, that "was controversial at the time and has never become one of the city's more beloved works of public art." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 18, 2013) Global Flight and Celebration was built to commemorate Hopkin’s fiftieth anniversary the year before, and was the major piece of public art for the new terminal complex still under construction at the time.

The installation of Clarence Van Duzer’s controversial Global Flight and Celebration in 1976, at its original location at the center of the lower-level roadway. Construction on the new terminal is still underway to the right. (Cleveland Memory Project)

It is a large sculpture consisting of several abstract geometric components jutting out at various angles. A sphere forms the focal point, and the work is dominated by a 49-foot- triangular shaft. Airport architect Richard L. Bowen, stated, “I think it is a quality piece of work with lasting virtue and is an individual statement by the artist.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 10, 1976)

Global and Flight Celebration in its original location. (Cleveland Memory Project)

The whole debate came close on the heels of the controversy surrounding the design of the $100,000 (worth about $554,469 today) Portal sculpture by world-renowned artist, Isamu Noguchi, in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center. Some people found it too radical, but the work has generally been defended by the art community.

Isamu Noguchi's 1976 Portal sculpture outside of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center, taken in 2005. There was also a great deal of controversy about this piece of monumental public art. (Mary Ann Sullivan, Blufton University)

Architect Bowen commissioned Global Flight and Celebration, for $30,000 (or $166,341 today), without open competition. It eventually would cost about $69,000 ($382,583 today) for the artist’s fee plus the fifteen tons of stainless steel needed to make it. Bowen said Mayor Ralph J. Perk also approved the design. However, the Fine Arts Advisory Committee, a body with no legal authority, was not consulted before the work was ordered and rejected it based on its artistic merits, criticizing its scale, concept, and proposed location.

Image of the competed Global Flight and Celebration in 1978. (University of Michigan Libraries)

Chief critics included Joseph McCullough, committee chairman and president of the Cleveland Institute of Art, along with Sherman E. Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Lee described it as “an unimaginative work and not good enough for a major airport.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board opined, “For many, the first impression of Cleveland comes from Hopkins Airport. The major art piece at the airport cannot be second-rate; it should be extraordinary. If the Van Duzer piece is not good enough to serve as the centerpiece, perhaps it could be located elsewhere.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 19, 1976)

Legendary Plain Dealer columnist, George E. Condon, had a vastly different opinion:

“Van Duzer, a Cleveland artist, sought to depict global flight with his imaginative sculpture, and the message of man’s liberation from earth bondage through wings is strongly suggested rather than deliberately obscured, which probably is the reason the experts of the fine arts committee demurred at the design.

"The Van Duzer sculpture at the airport appeals strongly to me. It has a certain splendor that every monumental work ought to have. His creativity contained itself within reasonable limitations, suggesting the theme, as it should, but with a nice subtlety. All in all, it is an attractive addition to the environment for which it was created, and the total cost of $69,000, under the circumstances, is a modest price for the unique results delivered.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 1, 1977)

Clarence Van Duzer’s Global Flight and Celebration in its original location at the "main entrance" to the new CLE terminal in the center of the arrivals level. (Cleveland Memory Project)

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Who was Clarence E. Van Duzer?

Clarenc E. Van Duzer in the 1950s. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 18, 2013)

Van Duzer, known by friends and family simply as Van, was a Pittsburgh-born, Cleveland School of Art and Yale-educated jack-of-all-trades who worked as an art professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art while simultaneously creating a large body of work in a variety of media. He was one of the few artists specializing in fountains and designed many for shopping malls, including for local developers Jacobs, Visconsi & Jacobs Co.

While he did not have a signature style and was not widely known outside of Northeast Ohio, he produced some wonderful pieces in a range of styles of the day. The Cleveland Museum of Art has one of his paintings in its collection of Cleveland artists, “a powerful 1948 study for a mural on the fight to cure cancer, painted in a style based on the populist realism of 20th-century Mexican muralistas including Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. In the work, oceans of white-coated doctors and lab technicians fight heroically against a disease personified by a frightening monster organism in the center of the composition, which looks like a giant red sea anemone run amok.” (Steven Litt, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 18, 2012)

Van Duzer's 1948 Mural Study for Cancer from the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

In the 1970s, Van Duzer constructed a concrete home and studio resembling a bunker near Settler’s Landing in the Flats along the Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland, located at 1520 Merwin Ave. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 89. His wife, artist Kathy Lynn, has diligently worked to enhance her late husband's reputation by founding the Clarence E. Van Duzer Foundation.

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On November 19, 1976, the City Planning Commission ultimately approved Van Duzer’s monumental work, but not after rebuking Bowen for bypassing the commission and the Fine Arts Advisory Committee. After approval, the Cleveland Beautiful Committee endorsed the controversial sculpture “as a significant work of art with lasting qualities” on December 1, 1976. It was finally installed in the center of the lower roadway on December 23, 1976.

Global Flight and Celebration. (Michelle Reitman via fllckr.com)

A view of Clarence Van Duzer’s Global Flight and Celebration, taken from the upper roadway. The connector building from the parking lots and old parking garage, as well as the recently demolished Sheraton Hopkins Hotel tower, are visible behind. (Cleveland Memory Project)

There the sculpture stood until it was moved by the airport to its current location at the airport exit for airport renovations in the early 2000s. Here is an interview with Clarence Van Duzer from Ideastream Public Media recorded around 2007. https://www.ideastream.org/arts-culture/2009-02-02/tribute-to-artist-clarence-van-duzer 

Another view of Van Duzer's controversial sculpture in its current location at the airport exit, taken on July 29, 2022. (Phil Kidd, everystreetcleveland.com)

Other Works of Art in the New Terminal

The Fine Arts Advisory Committee readily approved a design by Van Duzer for another abstract sculpture for a reflecting pool in the airport lobby to be built the following year. This 20-foot-high work was made of 2,800 pounds of bronze and cost about $18,000 (about $100,000 today). The fate of this sculpture is unknown.

A 1978 view of Van Duzer's abstract sculpture in the new terminal's main lobby, now the location of the Central security checkpoint. (University of Michigan Libraries)

Several carpet wall murals also graced the interior of the new terminal. One abstract tapestry was located along the north wall of the main lobby (where the Central security checkpoint is now located). The artist is unknown as is the fate of the murals.

The new main lobby of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport featured a large, colorful carpet wall mural, taken November 3, 1978. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

Another view of CLE's bright new main lobby with Van Duzer's bronze sculpture in the middle and the vibrant carpet wall mural in the background in the late 1970s. Note the blue and gold upholstery of the modern molded plastic chairs following the new terminal's color scheme. (Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

The new skylit main lobby of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport with Van Duzer's fountain and the carpet wall mural visible, taken January 11, 1979. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

The main lobby of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport with Van Duzer's bronze sculpture and fountain visible to the left and the large, colorful carpet wall mural in the background to the right. This space is now the Central security checkpoint. (1988 Department of Port Control Annual Report in the author's private collection)

Another set of tapestries hung on the back wall of the newly renovated baggage claim level. These featured flying waterfowl in calming shades of brown and gold. I am unsure if they still exist under later renovations or if they were removed or destroyed.

Cleveland Press reporter Ray Elias wrote glowingly about the wall hangings.

“Edward Fields and Paul V’Soske are two of the biggest names in custom all-wool carpet These people do fantastic things with designs in carpets. One of the most luxurious examples has just been installed at Hopkins Airport in the baggage claim area. V’Soske designed about 300 square yards of carpet that cover 420 feet of lineal wall space. It’s the carpet with the flying birds. The carpet was supplied by Paul Wieland Inc., a division of Scott Carpet Inc. a Cleveland carpet mill and wholesaler. The renderings for the designs were made by Michael Benjamin, a Cleveland architect. It was installed by the Gellin Co. of Cleveland. Be sure to enjoy this all-wool luxury at our airport. I would estimate that the taxpayers paid about $140.000 ($750,363 today!) for this decorative carpet in the baggage claim area. Be sure to touch the luxury of the wool. Impress your friends who are flying into Cleveland. I don’t know of a larger installation anywhere. It's another plus for Cleveland.” (Cleveland Press, December 30, 1977)

A view of the bird tapestry adorning the wall behind a baggage carousel in CLE's new terminal, ca. 1978. Note the gold carpet featured throughout the arrivals level. (Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

A closer image of the carpet wall art, here featuring seagulls, along the baggage claim wall on the lower level of the new terminal in 1978.  (University of Michigan Libraries)

The carpet wall mural and new baggage carousels, November 3, 1978. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

Another view of the carpet wall mural and new baggage carousels, November 3, 1978. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

A closeup of the geese featured on the carpet wall mural in the new baggage claim area, December 17, 1978. (Cleveland Plain Dealer photo in the author's private collection)

The Remodeled West Concourse (B)

The final piece of the airport's multi-year $67 million expansion and renovation was the expansion and remodeling of the West or B Concourse. The construction project provided renovated gate areas for Air Canada, Comair, Delta Air Lines, Eastern Airlines, Republic Airlines, and Cleveland's own Wright Airlines. The $9+ million concourse was financed by airport revenue bonds and opened for passengers on December 19, 1982.

An artist's rendering of the remodeled West Concourse (now B) by architects Richard L. Bowen & Associates. The double-decked concourse was designed to handle L-1011 widebody jets of Delta and Eastern Airlines. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 11, 1981)

The new four-level concourse was constructed above the airport's original 1954 concourse, which remained operational for airlines during the construction. This led to the closure of the beloved observation deck that extended nearly the entire length of the old concourse.

The new Concourse B features 11 jetbridge-equippped gates, an updated public address system, and a spectator deck with glass-enclosed and outdoor observation areas on its third floor (closed in the early 2000s). The fourth floor accommodates the airport's operations center.

It was designed by Keith White, architect in charge of airport design at Richard L. Bowen & Associates. Its exterior surfaces are pre­cast concrete panels rather than white aluminum as in the North Concourse. White explained that the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control technical experts requested the change because large amounts of aluminum caused "bad bounces" in surveillance radar signals, which can lead to confusion between the building and moving airliners.(Cleveland Press, January 19, 1981)

The new West Concourse under construction with a Comair Emb. 110 parked at the gate in March 1982, Today this is gate B9. The new observation deck and operations tower are visible above. (George Mihalek [GeorgeM757] via flickr)

Hopkins officials said completion of the nine-year airport construction project would make it possible for the airport to serve 14 million passengers a year, a number CLE has yet to attain (it came closest in 2000 at the height of Continental's CLE hub with 13,288,059 passengers and it currently handles about 10 million traveler).

The interior of the last piece of the Hopkins Airport terminal building project, the renovated West Concourse (now B) from approximately 1983. This shows two of Delta's gate hold rooms, now B2 and B4. Note the unique carpet with the CLE logo. (Richard L. Bowen & Associates)

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this article that will look at some more recent works of public art at Cleveland Hopkins Airport.