Editorial: Art in the airport

Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007 | 7 a.m.

McCarran's D gate exhibits are a testament to public art in Las Vegas

If those who seek to criticize Las Vegas for a lack of public art arrived here through McCarran International Airport's D gates, their disapproval might be tempered.

As noted in a story in the Las Vegas Sun on Monday, visitors disembarking their flights at the D concourse are greeted by what Sun reporter Kristen Peterson characterized as "a contemporary wonderland" of art and light.

Travelers, who likely have better destinations in mind than an airport, still pause to ponder the massive terrazzo floor map depicting an aerial perspective of the Las Vegas Valley. They snap photos and examine the larger-than-life sculptures of desert creatures - a horned toad, a snake and a scorpion.

Even those who don't have time to stop can't help but notice the natural light that cascades over them as they bustle through the spacious rotunda.

McCarran's D gate is an aesthetic wonder and a glamorous sibling to the airport's more mundane and conventional A and B gates - which were considered engineering feats when built in the 1960s.

There are those who might wonder why an airport needs a giant snake that appears to slither over and below a concourse floor or the addition of a recently approved $75,000 glass sculpture suspended from its ceiling.

Need, however, comes in many forms. And world-class cities need art - in museums, certainly, but also in public spaces. A community that cares about its residents gives them places to be proud of and public fixtures that make them think and wonder. Public art is a sign that a community respects itself and the people who visit it.