Some public art is launched with great fanfare at prime locations. Others you have to discover because they are in such obscure locales. Such is the case with Greg Snider's Project For A Public Works Yard, located at the northwest corner of National and Chess streets on the False Creek flats, next door to a city works yard, a city gas station, and a fire training facility.
A Cutaway View of City Infrastructure
The sculpture is essentially a cutaway of typical street infrastructure. It slices the infrastructure in half so you can see what goes on underneath — what Snider calls "the infrastructure underground." Above a raised sidewalk sit familiar objects: a fire hydrant, a storm drain, a parking meter, a street light, and a traffic light. Beneath the sidewalk are the guts of the infrastructure — pipes and valves of many shapes and sizes, most made of cast iron.
Commissioned for the National Works Yard
The artwork was commissioned for Vancouver's National Works Yard when it opened in 2024, and was recently refurbished. Snider, 81, who taught visual art at Simon Fraser University before retiring, explained his inspiration: "I proposed that I would make a piece that represented everything the works yard did. That included all of the engineering, all of the electrical, the parking, and the gas line. The two types of sewers, the storm drain and the sanitary sewer and the water mains — everything was going to be represented."
He added: "The idea was it's as if you took this piece and just pulled it up out of the ground and exposed everything that was underneath. The guys who do all this incredible work … it gets buried. Nobody sees it for 100 years."
Behind the Scenes of Creation
Snider was approached by the city's then-art consultants, Barb Cole and Mike Banwell, to submit a proposal because his art deals with labour and work. The commission was $90,000, but it took a year and a half to build, so he figures he only made about $11,000 after expenses. "I had an engineer back in the day look at it and say, 'Oh, that must have cost $250,000,'" he recalls. "They were pretty impressed I could do it for $90,000."
City staff were very helpful putting it together. The site was once the eastern end of False Creek, and he had to sink four piles five storeys into the ground to reach bedrock or solid ground before he could install the piece. "They didn't tell me (that) when I took the commission," he said. "They said, 'Oh, by the way, you're going to have to pile this.' Fortunately, the pile driver was still on site, so I went and talked to him. They drove four 50-foot piles down underneath."
The city also helped cut many of the pieces so people could see the inner workings of the infrastructure. "You've got the fire training facility right here," he said with a smile. "They actually don't have a cutaway hydrant to show their young trainees, so they come over here to look at mine."
Celebrating Hidden Work
Snider's sculpture is a tribute to the often-invisible labor of city workers who maintain the underground networks that keep Vancouver running. It stands as a reminder of the complex systems beneath our feet, now exposed for all to see.
