The rain this morning didn’t stop Tony Hawk and the skateboarders from coming out to break in a new skate park on the corner of Monroe Avenue and Farmer Street.
The new park will open to the public tomorrow, but we got a sneak peak of the new skate park and art installation called Wayfinding.
Tony Hawk designed the skate park and Ryan McGinness created all of the sign artwork.
McGinness was inspired by the way architects and designers use signs to help navigate places.
“I saw a parallel with what skateboarders do with these found architectural elements. Skateboarders subvert those elements for their own creative use,” said McGinness. “So the parallel is just between that and the street signs and the visual memory of street signs. So they are universal symbols. So I’m making signs that look like regular signs but they are more surreal and absurd.”
Bedrock and Quicken Loans are the sponsors of Wayfinding. The project was a collaborative effort between the Library Street Collective and Cranbrook Art Museum. A rendering of the full design is below.
Skateboarders will have six different elements to skate on in Wayfinding.
The park was built by George Leichtweis of Modern Skate and Surf. If the name sounds familiar it is because they also did the Fisher Half Pipe from earlier this year.
Wayfinding will be open until January 2018. Bedrock will begin construction on the Monroe Blocks project at that time. The skate park will then move to a new location.
The skatepark is free to anyone who wants to come out to skate. All of the equipment is included as well.
Hours: Sunday through Thursday 12:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday 12:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m.
The skatepark is located at the corner of Monroe and Farmer streets in downtown Detroit.