Bike Racks by David Byrne
July 2008 - July 2009

Since the last week of July 2008 New York has artful bike racks by Talking Heads lead-singer and artist David Byrne on selected places through Manhattan and Brooklyn. The next artful pieces by the finalists of the international design competition, organised by the New York City Department of Transportation, will follow on 30th September 2008.

Thematic Conjunction

For 364 days the artful bike racks designed by David Byrne can be used. The pieces seem to be installed in a thematic conjunction to the places: at the Wall Street you can find the dollar sign $, near a Hungarian pastry shop you can park your bike at a coffee cup, and in front of Bergdorf Goodman a red ladies' shoe decorates the sidewalk (picture on this site).

The bike racks by David Byrne has been chosen by the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) and the New York art gallery Pace Wildenstein.

Bicyclist David Byrne is one of the jurors at the "Bike Parking Design Competition" for outdoor and indoor bicycle rack organised by the DOT.



The Bike Parking Design Competition

In March 2008 the competition was announced by DOT in cooperation with the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, with support from Google Inc. and Transportation Alternatives. More than $50,000 in honoraria to develop prototype bike racks and $15,000 in prizes will be awarded to the top designs. The competition was open to the international design community including architects, artists, engineers, landscape architects, planners, urban designers, product and industrial designers, and manufacturers. Multi-disciplinary teams have been encouraged to participate.

“As we seek to promote cycling as a mainstream transportation option, it is imperative that we provide convenient and secure bike parking,” said DOT-Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “Working with Cooper-Hewitt, Google Inc. and Transportation Alternatives, we hope this competition develops a new generation of on-street bicycle parking that will be more visually noticeable, artistically designed, and unique to New York City.”

The city intends to use the winning sidewalk rack as its new standard for bicycle parking and Google may install the in-building facility in its New York City offices. It may also be used by NY City-owned buildings in the future.

The Presentation of the Winning Designs

On 30 September 2008 the exhibition of the prototypes by the 10 finalists will open at the National Design Museum Cooper-Hewitt. The jury will then select first-, second-, and third-place winners. The prototypes will be installed at two locations in the city.

Check out details about the schedule, jury, finalists, ... of the Bike Parking Competition nycityracks.wordpress.com/schedule/

More information about David Byrne's bike racks and their locations www.davidbyrne.com

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fig.: The Ladies' Mile, 5th Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, in front of Bergdorf Goodman. Photo by Jason Accime, courtesy of DOT.