More than Books: New Fontana library holds spot for artworks

Date: December 23, 2007

By Mary Bender, The Press-Enterprise

FONTANA - Books may get top billing at the public library under construction on Sierra Avenue, but artworks will be the featured guest star, adding distinction to downtown Fontana's future hub.

Some of the pieces will be whimsical, others dreamlike. Some will be inspiring, others imposing. The city of Fontana, which is paying for the bulk of the $60 million Lewis Library & Technology Center, commissioned several artworks for the 93,000-square-foot building -- the biggest branch in the San Bernardino County Library system.

The library's grand opening is scheduled for April 19.

The art most specific to Fontana will be a 25-inch-high bronze bust of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, namesake for the Kaiser Steel plant that, from 1942 until its 1984 closing, employed generations.

The Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, on Sierra Avenue a few miles south of the library, is one of many hospitals and medical complexes that carry on the iconic businessman's name. He previously was famous for building the Hoover Dam during the Depression and "Liberty Ships" at his Northern California shipyard during World War II.

San Bernardino sculptor Patrick Jewett created the head-and-shoulders likeness of Kaiser wearing a suit and glasses.

Kaiser's endeavors also included real estate development, automobile manufacturing, mining, development of the first health maintenance organization and establishment of the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

"I did some research on him -- he was a great man," Jewett said. "I'm really proud that I could take part in this brand new library that's going to be state of the art, and more so that people will know who (Kaiser) is."

Ray Bragg, Fontana's redevelopment and special projects director, said other art that will be incorporated into the library's design includes:

A watercolor painting of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, by Milford Zornes, a Claremont artist who will celebrate his 100th birthday on Jan. 25.

Desks in the Children's Library encircling faux citrus trees.

A life-size statue of a Chinese warrior.

Ceramic tile decorated with a scroll design, in deep tones of navy blue, hunter green and dark orange.

Computer stations in the Young Adult Library that resemble race car tires, part of a NASCAR theme chosen for the teen section.

A life-size statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., also for the Children's Library.

One of the library's most noticeable architectural features is its rotunda, which looks like a two-story window seat overlooking Sierra Avenue, the main street in Fontana's vintage downtown.

The rotunda will house first- and second-floor reading rooms, cozy dens with comfortable chairs where patrons can read while sipping coffee from the library's java bar, Bragg said during a recent tour of the construction site.

Los Angeles artist Peter Erskine, 66, will use the tall, curved rotunda windows like a giant glass canvas.

Since the afternoon sun will stream through the windows, which face directly west, the library's architects turned the need for shade into an artistic opportunity, Erskine said. The firm, Los Angeles-based RNL Design, created aluminum screens, laser cut with decorative patterns, to filter light.

Then the sunshine will pass through Erskine's "rainbow prisms," laser-etched into flat polyester film to be attached to the rotunda windows.

Depending on the time of year and the angle of the sun, the rainbows will land on different parts of the reading room, in colors that will vary slightly with the seasons or the sun's intensity.

"It's bringing nature into the building," Erskine said.

San Francisco visual artist Camille Utterback is creating an installation for the Children's Library -- an interactive work she calls "text rain."

People entering the Children's Library will pass by a projection screen, and it will appear that words or letters are falling from the ceiling.

Reach Mary Bender at 909-806-3056 or mbender@PE.com