The Town of Seaside announces the completion of a unique landmark honoring America’s greatest historian and educator of art and architecture, Vincent Scully. Commissioned by Seaside Co-founders Robert & Daryl Davis and renowned architect and urbanist Dhiru Thadani (@dathadani), world-renowned street artist Andrew Pisacane, known as “Gaia,” paid tribute to Scully with the wall-sized mural on Seaside’s purple wall at 25 Central Square along Hwy. 30a. A dedication ceremony was held in front of the mural on Fri., Feb. 23rd.

As an early supporter of Seaside, Scully influenced many who contributed their design, planning and architecture talents to Seaside, several of them his students at Yale and many more who read his books or attended his lectures in Seaside.

“Gaia,” known for his murals about people and neighborhoods, paid artistic tribute with the mural depicting a thoughtful portrait of Scully prominently positioned in the composition. The background image is of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, in violet taken from the cover of Scully’s influential book, The Earth, the Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture,” said Thadani.

True to most of his works, the end product of Scully was affected by Gaia’s experiences from travels around the world as well as his deep interest in making place, celebrating history and reinforcing community. “We couldn’t be more pleased with this larger-than-life mural depicting Scully,” said Thadani. “Gaia’s artistic skills captured Scully’s essence.”

“The project offers Seaside visitors a cultural and historical experience through the eyes of mural artist Gaia, and portrays the importance and impact Scully had on the town of Seaside,” said Seaside co-founder Robert Davis.

Seaside is restoring and re-nourishing its coastal sand dunes

In an effort to mitigate storm effects and maintain its beaches in the best possible condition, Seaside is restoring and re-nourishing its coastal sand dunes. This approach will further develop Seaside’s long-term preservation and resiliency strategy to protect the landscape and maintain the native ecosystems. Its implementation will provide natural, enduring and future protection with no adverse effect to adjacent coastal areas.

Work has commenced behind the Coleman and Seaside pavilions and will take approximately three months to complete. Seaside, in partnership with the project’s contractor, Dune Doctors, has been working with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to facilitate the process that will create an aesthetically pleasing, environmentally-compliant dune landscape with optimized protection.

The project includes four principle parts:

1. Preservation Phase—dunes are being cleaned up and fertilized.
2. Protection Phase—a sand fence is being installed and native plants, including sea oats and panic grasses, are being planted.
3. Optimization Phase—additional plants including sea oats, panic grasses, ground covers and flowers, are being planted in bare areas.
4. Dune Management Phase—includes health checkups, site visits for trash removal, pruning and annual fertilizations.

“Seaside is committed to the most beneficial sand dune restoration and beautification,” said Seaside Co-Founder Robert Davis. “It is vital to protect our coastline; we hope that neighboring communities share our commitment in maintaining and beautifying the most important, and fragile, part of our ecology.”