John Robinson, Jr. Town Square by Walter Hood

In 2013, Arlington Public Art was one of 59 grantees selected by the National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) Our Town program and received $75,000 to develop a public art project in a planned town square in Green Valley (formerly known as Nauck). Incorporating public art into the design of the town square has long been planned.

Through Our Town, the NEA supports creative placemaking projects that help transform communities into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core. The grantee projects will encourage creative activity, create community identity and a sense of place, and help revitalize local economies. All Our Town grant awards were made to partnerships that consist of at least one nonprofit organization and a local government entity. Arlington Public Art’s primary partner organization is the Arlington Community Foundation, who will provide leadership in community engagement as well as long term support of the project.

Arlington Public Art’s project for the town square allows Oakland, CA, based landscape architect and artist Walter Hood to shape the final design of the plaza in a way that tells the story of the Green Valley community and its heritage. Hood, whose work can be seen across the country and is the recipient of numerous awards, engages residents and community leaders in his process of designing the plaza and art elements. The goal is to develop an overall design vision that elaborates upon the rich social and cultural history of Green Valley and employs it in the creation of a dynamic new public space. Walter Hood began design in fall 2015 and his final concept was accepted in 2016. The project is currently in construction, with completion expected in 2021

Read the press release.
Read more about the John Robinson, Jr. Town Square from the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development.
Learn more about the NEA’s Our Town Program.
Learn more about Walter Hood.
See Walter Hood’s TED Talk.
Check out one of Hood’s latest projects.

The Community Voices, The Nauck Community Heritage Project, completed in 2008 in partnership with the Arlington County Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development, asked historian Harold Anderson to document the oral histories of residents in the south Arlington Green Valley community, formerly known as Nauck. This work heavily informed the John Robinson, Jr. Town Square project.