When in the Course…

edited by Sheila Kim -- Interior Design, 4/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Thanks to a public-art initiative, the founding ideals of the United States now greet passengers traveling via the Philadelphia International Airport. Rob Fisher's mixed-media American Dream is being unveiled in April as a permanent fixture of the airport's arrival hall. The three-part work shows the country's history as seen from the perspective of an artist with immigrant roots—his grandparents and mother emigrated from Eastern Europe. On the upper walls, a 250-foot-long sign in aluminum and neon spells out passages from the Declaration of Independence. Along the floor, a 90-foot-long illuminated handrail of extruded aluminum, neon, and frosted glass is etched with the declaration's 56 signatures. On a sidewall, a 10-foot-high panel of sand- blasted illuminated glass bears the declaration's complete Thomas Jefferson text.