Bisazza of Italy creates mosaic mural of a lion to guard Dollar Bank branch in Cleveland’s Galleria
By Steven Litt - Art and Architecture Critic of The Plain DealerJuly 29, 2008, 3:19PM
Steven Litt is a Plain Dealer critic.
“Story copyright The Plain Dealer.
Used with permission.”
Cecilia Silva of Bisazza helped create the glass tile mosaic mural of a lion for Dollar Bank in Cleveland.
The renovated Dollar Bank branch at the Galleria in downtown Cleveland, schedule to open in early August, contains a striking example of traditional craft combined with computer technology.
Using proprietary software, artist-technicians from Bisazza, an Italian company based near Vicenza, Italy, translated a high-resolution photograph of a carved stone lion, taken at the bank’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, and turned the image into a 20-by-25-foot glass tile mosaic.
Visible from the outside along Saint Clair Avenue near the corner of East Ninth Street, the lion is a striking image hovering somewhere between high-end commercial decor and art. It’s also an example of how Italian companies are finding new markets -- and protecting jobs at home -- by manufacturing products that have an air of luxury, precision and high craft.
Architect William Eberhard of Oliver Design Group, said he specified the Bisazza tile mural after concluding it would be too difficult to create a back-lighted, stained-glass image of a lion inside the branch.
Eberhard worried that a big, south-facing window nearby would wash out the stained glass during the day.
A salesman from Bisazza, however, convinced Eberhard that a mosaic mural would work. Dollar Bank provided a photograph of the lion sculpture, carved in brownstone in 1871 by Ohio artist Max Kohler, and the Bisazza employees in Florida, where the company has branches, went to work.
Cecilia Silva, a graphic design assistant, performed the key task of mapping tiles in 19 different hues so that they’d cohere to make a credible replica of the lion image.
The finished product is striking and tasteful, and it was very smart of the bank not to hit viewers over the head by including the bank’s name in big block letters over the image.
But more than anything, the mural makes one dream of the fascinating uses that might be made of the Bisazza tile technology by contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons or Chuck Close.
Already, the company has partnered with architects Alessandro Mendini and Michael Graves, fashion designer Romeo Gigli, and painters Mimmo Rotella and Anna Gili.
In comparison to the wildly creative possibilities, then, it’s fair to say that the Dollar Bank lion is, ahem, just a bit tame.
A salesman from Bisazza, however, convinced Eberhard that a mosaic mural would work. Dollar Bank provided a photograph of the lion sculpture, carved in brownstone in 1871 by Ohio artist Max Kohler, and the Bisazza employees in Florida, where the company has branches, went to work.
Cecilia Silva, a graphic design assistant, performed the key task of mapping tiles in 19 different hues so that they’d cohere to make a credible replica of the lion image.
The finished product is striking and tasteful, and it was very smart of the bank not to hit viewers over the head by including the bank’s name in big block letters over the image.
But more than anything, the mural makes one dream of the fascinating uses that might be made of the Bisazza tile technology by contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons or Chuck Close.
Already, the company has partnered with architects Alessandro Mendini and Michael Graves, fashion designer Romeo Gigli, and painters Mimmo Rotella and Anna Gili.
In comparison to the wildly creative possibilities, then, it’s fair to say that the Dollar Bank lion is, ahem, just a bit tame.
