Features

There’s a 350,000-pound spaceship headed straight for Berkeley, and the only questions left are where and when the big blue ball is going to land. 

Its first landing effort, in the city across the Bay Bridge, was foiled, so it recharted its course after finding signs of a friendlier reception in these parts.  

But when it arrives in Berkeley, the craft’s lone occupant, a bronze humanoid, won’t have to utter that ancient “Take me to your leader” chestnut because he and his craft are the invitees of Mayor Tom Bates. 

The craft itself is compromised of wedges of blue Brazilian metamorphic quartzite, sandstone transformed under heat and pressure—the same forces some have accused Bates of applying to bring the hefty creation here. 

The cerulean craft and its occupant are, of course, “Spaceship Earth,” commissioned by Power Bar founders Brian and Jennifer Maxwell before the former’s death last year. 

Bates and the Maxwells were good friends of the man memorialized in bronze, noted Berkeley-born environmentalist David Brower. 

If all goes as planned, the massive creation of Finno-American sculptor Eino will be in place before Brower’s second and even grander memorial rises on an already selected site. 

The four-story David Brower Center, to be built at Fulton Street and Allston Way, unlike the spaceship, has drawn nearly unanimous praise, both for its unique design and for its embodiment of green building principles. 

The center will house the offices of environmental organizations as well as ground floor eco-friendly retailers and restaurants. 

The spaceship, by contrast, has elicited a distinctly different response. The mass of the artwork is a 12-foot sphere composed of wedges of bolted-together quartzite, with continents and islands formed from 1,426 pieces of bronze bolted to the exterior. 

The Maxwells originally intended that the weighty work would be installed in San Francisco, and they enlisted some potent supporters on the Board of Supervisors to plead their case. 

But the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Visual Arts Committee saw things differently, rejecting the piece as “extremely grand and flamboyant” and lacking in “sensitivity to environmental issues.” 

But, like it or not, Spaceship Earth is coming, and the Civic Arts Commission (CAC) has been entrusted with picking the landing zone. 

Though there’s no final decision, a CAC panel has picked a short list of sites, most near the waterfront, said David Snippen, the group’s chair. 

The CAC gave the sculpture its conditional endorsement after Mayor Bates plied members with calls urging its adoption. 

But commissioners had grave misgivings about Eino’s original version, which featured a life-sized bronze Brower atop the quartzite globe and reaching for the stars. 

After critics blasted that depiction as “another white man dominating the earth,” Eino agreed to place Brower on a nearby bench as though contemplating the statue. 

Though other sites may be considered, the current list focuses on the Berkeley waterfront, with possible sites in Aquatic Park, at the intersection of University Avenue and Marina Boulevard, and two in the lawn area near the transition of Marina Boulevard into Spinnaker Way. 

Those locations would require the respective approvals of the city’s waterfronts and parks commissions. 

Other possible locations include Cedar Rose Park and at the westernmost end of Ohlone Park—which would require approvals from parks and neighborhood groups, something Snippen acknowledges could prove problematic. 

Another site, at Tilden Park, was rejected after a negative response from the University of California, but Snippen said the panel is looking at another UC site at the Lawrence Hall of Science, “but we need to talk to the university.” 

“We started with over 30 locations, and it’s still up in the air,” Snippen said. “We have done a good job of examining all the realities, and each site has its specific issues.” 

CAC panelists will hold discussions with the Waterfront Commission next Monday, followed by a consultation with the Parks Commission on March 8, he said. 

“We’ll get input from them, and then we’ll narrow down the choices for presentation to the City Council in May, or by June at the latest,” he said. 

The CAC will hold its next meeting Wednesday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave.