Patrick Comerford
Walking out of Watford Junction Station, before walking into the town centre, an installation of large, colourful letters outside the station spells out ‘Watford’. It was designed by Dallas-Pierce-Quintero to create a welcoming first impression of the town and as a tribute to the printing heritage of Watford.
The graphic designer Stephen Barrett worked with project to create bespoke fonts that could be used sit, lean, lie on. It incorporates text engraved into the largest W that introduces Watford to new visitors and alludes to the town’s printing heritage while revealing the meaning of each letter:
W is for Welcoming
A is for Artistic
T is for Town Centre
F is for Football
O is for Open Spaces
R is for Railway
D is for Diversity
To help intuitively lead people to the town centre without the need for additional signage, they designed bespoke in-laid Ws that are based on the council’s logo and that form a trail from the station entrance to the town centre.
The work draws inspiration from Watford's printing heritage, and the playful super graphic letters are multi-functional to reduce clutter while providing seating, lighting, planting and wayfinding day and night. The symmetrical nature of the letters and their arrangement lead visitors to the high street and make them legible from all directions.
‘Welcome to Watford’ was part of the Watford Cultural Strategy 2018-2025, and was facilitated by the creation of a new cycle hub, decluttering the station forecourt of cycle parking and creating a new and playful public realm.
The aim was to transform what was once a nondescript place for passing through into a welcoming and friendly environment, encouraging visitors to stay longer and return again. The work includes embedded content promoting Watford, and it has becomes a real landmark for Watford and a great first ‘gateway’ impression for visitors.
‘Welcome to Watford’ promises to surprise visitors to its eight square miles, and refers also to ‘a much-loved football team’ as well as the town’s shopping, restaurants, bars, theatres and parks.
‘We celebrated all that Watford has to offer with a playful public realm response designed to lift people’s mood on a daily basis. We hope this project will demonstrate the immense value of quality public space by encouraging both social and physical interaction,’ said Juliet Quintero of Dallas-Pierce-Quintero.
Three friends formed Dallas-Pierce-Quintero with the aim of bringing joy to places and spaces. But after 15 years of practicing art, architecture ‘and everything in between’, including placemaking and public art commissions, they decided recently to cease trading to allow the directors to pursue new opportunities. Jon Dallas is focussing on architecture and interiors in Mallorca with Isla-Atelier; David Pierce joined London Authority of Croydon as a Public Practice associate; and Juliet Quintero established a new placemaking studio, Public Art Matters.
For many years to come, their ‘Welcome to Watford’ will continue to welcome arrivals at Watford Junction.
And, if the F in Watford symbolises Football in Watford, two other sculptures celebrate football in Watford. There is a sculpture of Graham Taylor in the plaza in front of the stadium at Vicarage Road, while the Hornet Sculpture by Heather Burrell, installed at the corner of High Street and King Street in 2001, is a reminder that Watford have been known as ‘the Hornets’ since 1960 when the side changed to a yellow and black kit.
Watford FC was founded in 1888 and moved to Vicarage Road since 1922. Graham Taylor’s time as manager from 1977 to 1987 is still celebrated, with memories of Watford reaching the FA Cup final in 1984, and there are memories too of promotion to the Premier League in 2015.
Elton John is a keen, long-time supporter of Watford FC and a former club chairman and he remains an Honorary Life President.
An early public sculpture is ‘Man and Woman’ by Andrew B Miller (1967) on Exchange Road, a few steps away from Saint Mary’s Church. I came across it by accident while I was trying to find my way from Saint Mary’s Church and Holy Rood Church.
Now, almost 60 years after this work was unveiled, Exchange Road is on a busy stretch of the ring road, and few people now notice this sculpture. It inaccessible to most pedestrians and looks lost and forlorn on almost neglected waste ground between a car park, the churchyard and an underpass.
The Friendship Columns in Saint Mary’s Square are columns topped with masks that relate to Watford’s twin towns in France (Nanterre), Germany (Mainz), Italy (Pesaro), Russia (Novgorod), and the US (Wilmington).
Each column comprises a tower of three stainless steel tubes that support two cast bronze masks one metre high, and a dome base with a relief map showing the location of each town.
Wilmington was chosen as the home town of Joe Biden when he was the US President. I can’t imagine a rush to add another column referring to Queen’s in New York as the home of Donald Trump, as the world slides into a greater need for global friendship.
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