City in Retrospect (Ben Franklin Bridge Wall)

City in Retrospect (Ben Franklin Bridge Wall) by artist Jared Bader was located in the Callowhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The intention for the mural was to reflect the City of Philadelphia while also welcoming motorists into the city. It is also a “period piece” featuring an historic streetscape. The theme is in keeping with the National Constitution Center.

Bader chose an architecturally based design to utilize the concrete blocks and the other construction elements of the overpass to the best advantage. and, in painting the second part (facing 6th street) wanted to take in hand the particular movement of cars coming off I-676 and going onto the Ben Franklin Bridge.

With architecture in mind, Bader thought about a city street scene that might possibly have existed before I-676 was erected. He researched old photographs and lithographs to get an idea of the look of the buildings.

The entire street scene is also designed to recede from the highest portion of the wall so the perspective of the street scene mimics the tapering, triangular shape of the wall. Also, as the street scene recedes, the buildings increasingly transform into blocks and shapes of color, reacting to the concrete blocks that comprise part of the wall.

Select blocks are painted in black and white and sepia tones. This effect is designed to fragment the uniformity of the entire mural and also lend a sense of history and antiquity to the street scene. These black and white and sepia fragments increase in size and frequency as the wall tapers smaller until the remaining mural is a series of subdued gray, sepia, and color shapes.

The 6th Street side of the mural carries over the same themes and design from the original section. Since this wall is not divided up into concrete blocks the artist mimicked the effect by painting in the size and shape of the blocks.

One major problem Bader wanted to address was the corner and how to hide it. The perspective of the street moves around the corner, but depending on where one is viewing the mural the street appears straight and unaffected by the corner. To truly see this one must be standing in the middle of the street of the exit ramp, since this is the average, middle point from where people will be viewing the mural.

The 6th street side was also designed to take advantage of the shape of the wall and illustrate a strong perspective and distance between objects.

Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location (replaced by Electric Philadelphia in 2019).