Gardens of Remembrance
Other (Winter Courtyard, total of 9 sculptural fountain columns): 53 x 16 x 16 in. (4.42 x 1.33 x 1.33 ft.)
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Responding to the building's carefully organized architectural forms, Lita Albuquerque designed the two forecourts that frame the structure's dramatic entry-pavilion. These spaces function as a transition from the commotion of the urban grid to the formal space of the courthouse. Together, the Winter Courtyard and the Summer Courtyard are the Gardens of Remembrance.
Albuquerque has invented these spaces with what she calls an "ecology of information", which explores the ever-changing relationships between a place, its inhabitants, and its history. For example, the Winter Courtyard commemorates the entire history of photographic images printed over multiple layers of tempered glass that cap the nine prehistoric, Native American, Spanish and Anglo cultures that contribute to Tucson's contemporary identity. Water gushes up from inside the columns and gently flows down their outer surfaces, metaphorically irrigating and nourishing the city with these rich cultures.
Whereas the Winter Courtyard reaches into the earth to extract meaning, the Summer Courtyard borrows its imagery from the sky. It is paved with dramatically contrasting bands of terracotta and black concrete, the latter of which is adorned with a field of stars. The center of this field is focused upon a depiction of the constellation Libra. This seventh sign of the zodiac represents a pair of scales, and this symbolically alludes to one of the building's functions as a federal courthouse.
