Bass Performance Hall Angels 48-foot

Fort Worth, Texas, United States

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Two 48-foot-tall angels carved from Texas Cordova Cream limestone by sculptor Márton Váró face Fourth Street on the exterior of Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth. According to the Fort Worth Report, each angel was carved in 52 blocks, and together they weigh roughly 293,000 pounds (146.5 tons), a figure the paper attributes to the hall's commemorative journal. Váró carved them over about three years, working first from his studio in California and later traveling to Texas. The angels began as a way to hide the building's air ducts and are among the hall's most iconic exterior features.

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Bass Performance Hall Angels 48-foot

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Site-level location · 32.7515° N, 97.3280° W

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The story

The two angels on the front of Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth began as a practical problem: where to put the air ducts.

According to the Fort Worth Report, the hall's architect, David M. Schwarz, said the ducts needed to be far from the stage without spoiling the main facade, and the construction committee considered options from galloping horses to cacti before settling on angels. Schwarz said he knew the design was a risk. He explained the idea as angels delivering music and drama to Fort Worth.

The team drew up a list of more than 60 sculptors. Schwarz said the Hungarian sculptor Márton Váró was the only one who wanted to carve the angels in limestone himself; some others suggested a waterjet or casting. Váró, who was in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship in the early 1990s, even carved his two-foot scale model from limestone.

The finished figures are carved from Cordova Cream Texas limestone. The Report says each angel is made of 52 separate pieces and stands 48 feet tall, and that together they weigh roughly 293,048 pounds (146.5 tons), citing the hall's commemorative journal. Over three years Váró carved them in sections, working first in an open-air studio at UC Irvine and later in Texas, building each from the bottom up. The Report calls them the largest pieces he has made.

Bass Hall's own site describes "Two 48-foot tall angels, sculpted from Texas limestone by Marton Varo" on the Grand Facade. The hall is owned and operated by Performing Arts Fort Worth and is the permanent home of Texas Ballet Theater, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, The Cliburn and the Fort Worth Opera.

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