FIVE permanent artworks, evoking memories of everything from the former opera house to old lavatory signs, are set to be installed in Dunfermline city centre. Fife Council has applied for planning permission to place a bronze plaque in Pilmuir Street, sculptures in Randolph Street and New Row, a birdbath in Maygate and metal panels in Walmer Drive.

A sixth piece, a "large work on paper", will go inside the Dunfermline Carnegie Library.

The funding comes from a legal agreement with Tesco, who agreed to pay for public art in connection with their delayed new store in Carnegie Drive. The pieces are being created for the council by Collective Architecture and artist Toby Paterson, from Glasgow, who said part of his inspiration for his art came from "skateboarding around defunct concrete buildings".

His art seeks to celebrate Dunfermline's past, in an array of different materials and forms, but also strikes a lighter note with a play on 'water features'.

According to his Glasgow School of Art profile, Paterson "makes paintings, reliefs and constructions which explore the relationship between abstraction and reality".

Describing their proposals in a report, Collective Architecture wrote, "The approach to proposing public artworks for Dunfermline has been one that hopes to capitalise on the variety inherent in the built environment of the town centre.

"As opposed to locating a single work on a prominent site, this proposal works across a series of sites at different scales and using a range of materials and processes appropriate to each of them." Paterson's Work on Paper in the library would be a "combination of drawing and collage" that would be framed and placed on permanent display. It would be a "permanent marker of the particular point in time that this project was realised and a subjective reflection of the town's intriguing history as it is made manifest in its built environment".

The Opera House Plaque would be set into a wall on Pilmuir Street, close to the site of the former opera house which was demolished in the early 1980s and its interior shipped to Sarasota, Florida. "The image would simply represent ... these two buildings that are central to an intriguing Dunfermline story yet are not marked in any concrete way within the town." The Birdbath and Public Convenience Signage "plays on the idea of public amenities and civic space". "It would feature a small sculptural birdbath that references 'water features' on each of Dunfermline's main parks; the now-vanished paddling pool in the Glen and the striking water towers atop the primary schools adjacent to the Public Park. "Period signage reclaimed from the former public lavatories on Queen Anne Street would also be installed and illuminated to both indicate the nearby public convenience and augment the sculptural composition." The Cluster Relief would feature painted aluminium panels placed on the wall of the former electricity service centre in Walmer Drive. It bears a "close relationship" to Paterson's gallery-based work and uses coloured planes to "both reflect and enhance a space or environment".

The Randolph Street Tower "emphasises the ridge-top topography of Dunfermline by placing a work at one of the highest points in the town centre". "It "recognises the potentially temporary nature of its site through modular construction that would allow re-siting, possibly in Public Park, as and when the site is redeveloped". The tower "encourages the audience to take a novel point of view, both literally and metaphorically, of Dunfermline".

Similar in form to the tower, the Alhambra Pavilion "would work as something of a lower-level counterpoint to its relative on top of the hill" and would occupy "a corner site on New Row that is prominent yet rather inhospitable to pedestrians". It "is very much a non-prescriptive sculptural form yet might function as a waiting area for audiences of the adjacent Alhambra" and "responds carefully to pedestrian and motorist views".

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