Growing up in Miami spending Saturdays at the Orange Bowl watching Hurricanes games, two vivid memories stand out for Daniel Arsham: the stadium’s orange bleachers and the enormous sign reading “MIAMI ORANGE BOWL” on its west side. These letters form the basis of the commemorative marker by Daniel Arsham/Snarkitecture for the new Florida Marlins Ballpark under construction on the site of the former Orange Bowl. Commissioned by Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, this public artwork is scheduled for completion in April 2012.

The existing letters from the sign are reconstructed at their original ten-foot height and orange color and scattered throughout the public plaza on the east side of the stadium. Their positions capture an ambiguous moment between destruction and rebuilding: some stand vertically; others are angled in mid-collapse or submerged in the ground, while others lay horizontally as if at rest. As visitors enter or exit the stadium and move through the plaza, different alignments are created between the letters, spelling out various words as the new stadium is glimpsed through fragments of the old.

The commemorative marker turns the destruction of the Orange Bowl into a creative act. It encourages people to stop, look, walk around, touch, and sit on and around the letters, creating a site for visitors to contemplate and celebrate the collective memory of the Orange Bowl and the legendary teams, historic events, and generations of fans who inhabited it. For newer visitors unfamiliar with the Orange Bowl, the letters create an immediately recognizable work around which new stories and memories will be formed, to be passed down and shared alongside those already established and rooted in the site.