Charles Gaines Frames a Living Ficus in Culver City

A large metal grid is rising around a mature ficus at Washington and National Boulevards in Culver City. Designed by Los Angeles artist Charles Gaines, A Frame for a Tree treats the living tree as both subject and active participant in a permanent public artwork.

The rectangular structure measures approximately 56 by 98 feet and stands beside the E Line's Culver City Station and the Ivy Station development. Its open framework is engineered to accommodate the tree's continued growth, setting a strict geometric system against a form that will keep changing.

A living subject inside a system

Gaines has long used rules, grids, and numerical structures to examine how meaning is produced. Here, the logic expands to architectural scale. The frame does not reproduce or replace the ficus; it changes how the existing tree is seen, drawing attention to its canopy, its position in the streetscape, and the infrastructure surrounding it.

A rendering shows the rust-colored grid extending well beyond the canopy, making the tree appear simultaneously monumental and temporarily contained. Construction photographs reveal a different stage of the work: the ficus remains dominant while the site is prepared around it, with the rail viaduct, traffic, and neighboring buildings still plainly visible.

Public art at a transit crossroads

Installation began in October and is expected to be completed later in 2026. The sculpture will join a public space that has recently gained seating and landscaping beneath the adjacent rail structure, adding another reason to pause at an intersection otherwise shaped by movement.

Gaines has described the project as a conversation among the ficus, the urban landscape, and the viewer. By placing a precise frame around something alive, the work asks how context changes perception without pretending that nature can be held still.

Sources: Urbanize LA and Culver City Crossroads.