88. SMITH STRATEGIC INC. / BETH SINGER DESIGN, LLC
The concept for the National Association of Realtors (NAR) outdoor sculpture was inspired by the granite and bronze totems in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial in Washington, D.C. The client goal was to create a sense of intimacy and spirituality similar to the feeling one gets when visiting the Roosevelt Memorial. The New Jersey Avenue site is a busy public thoroughfare though, quite different from the serenity of the Roosevelt Memorial, so it presented a challenge. “My idea was to create intimacy on a personal level,” says creative director Howard Smith of Smith Strategic Inc.

The NAR headquarters is a contemporary building positioned on a triangular lot a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Smith and his wife Beth Singer of Beth Singer Design, LLC, designed the . ve stainless steel 7 x 18-inch cylindrical totems with interior spaces inviting visitors to look inside. “Realtors sell land and property, so this concept is conveyed through the design and educational message of each totem,” says Smith.

The three different home-related cut shapes created a sense of playfulness that intrigues plaza visitors to peer inside the keyhole, door, or window to read the message. “Our type solution was evocative of classical architectural typography from the 1920s in Europe and the U.S.” says Singer. The fabricators, Art in Metal USA, etched the type onto thin flat sheets of stainless steel. These were water-jet cut with the shapes. In a separate operation, stainless tubes were also water-jet cut with matching shapes. The flat sheets were rolled and inserted inside the tubes and then sandwiched together.

Singer designed the typography using timeless quotes by notables Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, chosen for their relationship to ownership of land and real estate, cornerstones of the American dream.
Kimberly Viviano