Visitors to the Judicial Center building in St. Petersburg, Florida, now get to “Face the Jury” before entering, thanks to an innovative sculpture design from artist Douglas Kornfeld and metal fabrication services from Welding Works.

The installation, a $90,000 public arts project funded by Pinella County, features 12 metal “Jury” chair fabrications, each situated on a grassy mound with view of a separate “Defendant” chair. Each of the 12 “Juror” chairs is at least 6’ high. They are elevated on grassy mounds ranging up to 3’ high and up to 30’ in diameter.

Kornfeld designed each chair to be unique to symbolize a jury and the diversity of its members, but painted them the same color as a unifying feature. The “Defendant” chair was designed to be as generic as possible, emphasizing the fact that anyone could be a defendant. It has an unobstructed view of the “Juror” chairs, and is placed in a corner to encourage passers-by to sit and “face the jury.”

Over the course of several stages of quoting, the project evolved dramatically. At first, Kornfeld's concept revolved around 13 identical chairs. From there, his idea progressed to include unique designs for each of the "Juror" chairs. "These substantial changes to the project initially pushed it outside of the artist's budget constraints," said John Kuziel, who heads Welding Works' Inside Sales/Estimating efforts. "The unique design elements for each chair would make the fabrications much more difficult and involved more expensive materials." Kuziel worked with Kornfield to refine the plan in order to maintain the custom design for each chair while hitting his budget target, utilizing standard, off-the-shelf components whenever possible to reduce labor costs. Working extensively with the customer to find a way to complete their project within their budget is the norm at Welding Works.

Once the project specs were set, Kornfeld submitted concept sketches of each of the chairs and Welding Works' engineering department went to work creating initial technical drawings for each piece. During the course of this process, H. Price van der Swaagh, Welding Works' President in charge of Manufacturing, engaged in further discussions with the artist to continue tweaking the plans to simplify the fabrication process and stay on budget – as well as on schedule.

Scheduling was absolutely essential on this job because, as fabrication of the chairs was under way at Welding Works' facilities in Connecticut, an elaborate groundbreaking and site preparation was simultaneously underway in Florida. Walter Camp, Welding Works' Vice President of Sales and Finance, used his extensive experience with planning a wide variety of metal fabrication installations to help guide Kornfeld painlessly through the process of establishing a plan for installation at the Florida site and selecting a local contractor to oversee the work.

Adding to the complexity of the job was the fact that the finished, powder-coated fabrications had to be transported all the way down the East Coast to Florida. Welding Works had to be very selective in coordinating shipment with a trucking company that could properly package, secure and move the large chairs in time to meet the deadline. All fabrication and transporation efforts had to be coordinated to a strict arrival date.

Fabrication of the steel chairs began at Welding Works in March of 2006. By early April, all 13 chairs were fully fabricated and ready for powder coating. On April 24, the chairs were loaded on a truck for shipping to Florida, where they arrived in great condition. "The chairs were flawless, without a scratch on them, when they arrived for installation, and everything at the site went smoothly," Kuziel said. Installation was completed on May 12, 2006.