Pillar Sculpture

Why a steel tree in the midst of a bustling wharf? This, my friends, is Pillar. It’s not just any sculpture. It’s a whisper of East Boston’s past, a nod to the industry that shaped this land and the natural history that preceded it. Pillar stands tall, a Corten weathering steel A588 sentinel amidst the modern Clippership Wharf development. It’s a permanent fixture, commissioned by Lend Lease and brought to life with help from HarborArts and community liaison Matthew Pollock. Now, imagine East Boston in the 1630s. Shipbuilding was booming along the banks of the Boston and Charlestown rivers. Massive Eastern White Pine trees, some hundreds of years old, were felled to build mighty ships. This industry fueled the economy but drastically altered the landscape. Seventy percent of New England’s forests vanished between 1650 and 1850. The Pillar sculpture, in its size and shape, echoes these majestic trees, trees worthy of the King’s Broad Arrow. King William III, concerned about the depletion of his valuable timber resource, enacted a charter in 1691. This charter reserved all trees with a diameter of 24 inches or more for the King’s use. These trees were marked with three hatchet strikes, a symbol known as the King’s Broad Arrow. You can still see these three strikes on the Pillar sculpture, a subtle reminder of the King’s claim. But Pillar isn’t just about shipbuilding. Look closely. A fiber optic cable, woven in classic naval braids, runs throughout the sculpture. This cable represents more than just the shipbuilding era. It whispers of a time long before ships, a time when East Boston was part of the supercontinent Pangea, located near the equator. Three hundred million years ago, giant scaled trees called Lepidodendrons dominated the landscape. These ancient trees, with their diamond-shaped scales, inspired the parametric pattern of holes you see on Pillar. The fiber optic cable takes on another meaning here. It represents the ancient fungi that saved the world from an impending ice age by finally evolving the ability to digest the Lepidodendrons’ lignin. So, Pillar is more than just a sculpture. It’s a time capsule, a monument to both human industry and the enduring power of nature. It’s a testament to East Boston’s transformative journey, from primordial forest to shipbuilding hub to the vibrant waterfront we see today.