Terra Incognita, Public sculpture at Broadway Bridge, Portland, US

Terra Incognita is a 1995 outdoor sculpture by Ilan Averbuch at North Broadway and North Larrabee Avenue, at the foot of the Broadway Bridge in Portland's Rose Quarter. It measures 15 by 40 by 6 feet and forms five cubes in a strong positive-negative pattern: three base cubes of bundled tree trunks support two suspended cubes of stacked stone. Steel, wood, stone and copper are combined; the photograph shows two blocky stone masses on rusted vertical metal posts, each with a protruding rectangular element.

Ilan Averbuch designed Terra Incognita, which was installed in 1995 at North Broadway and North Larrabee Avenue, at the foot of the Broadway Bridge in Portland's Rose Quarter. The Regional Arts & Culture Council administers the piece as part of the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection. Averbuch linked its pairing of wood and stone to Oregon's frontier character and to the scale of the bridges and buildings around the site.

The title Terra Incognita is Latin for "unknown land", a phrase cartographers once put on uncharted regions of maps. Averbuch chose it for a gateway standing where the city meets the Willamette River, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council, which administers the piece, holds it in the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection.

This installation sits at the base of the Broadway Bridge where it functions as a visible landmark for both pedestrians and vehicles passing through the area. Access from the public space is straightforward and offers good visibility from the street level.

The three lower cubes are bundles of tree trunks, while the two upper stone masses hang suspended from them, so the wood carries the stone. The work measures 15 by 40 by 6 feet and is credited to the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection through the Regional Arts & Culture Council.