Islamic Center Monument Sign, East Luzerne Street
A monument cut to the shape of the building it speaks for. A dome, two minarets, two languages on one face, and twelve programs listed where a driver turning in can read them.
What the Photograph Shows
The sign is not a rectangle. Its outline is drawn from the architecture it fronts: a blue dome rising to a finial at the center, a minaret standing on each side with a crescent at the top, and a squared shoulder carrying the face between them.
The face holds the MAS mark and ISLAMIC CENTER in dark type on white, with the Arabic name set in blue directly beneath it. Below that, two columns list what the site actually contains. The left column reads Masjid, Community Center, Islamic School, Youth Center, Library, Sports. The right column reads Garden and Play Ground, Cafeteria and Minimart, Quran Institute, Taekwondo, Games, Fitness. An arched doorway graphic sits between the two columns.
An address line runs across the bottom of the face reading 123 E. Luzerne St. Phila, PA 19124, with a telephone line under it.
The sign sits on a masonry base with a cap course, set in a planting bed behind an iron picket fence. Yellow bollards stand in a row in front of it, and a traffic cone leans at the curb. The photograph was taken with snow on the ground.
Project Specs
- Client
- Islamic Center
- Location
- 123 East Luzerne Street, Philadelphia, PA 19124, as lettered on the sign face itself
- Sign type
- Monument sign
- Profile
- Custom outline: central dome with a finial, flanked by two minarets with crescent finials
- Copy
- English and Arabic on a single face, above two columns listing twelve programs, above an address line
- Base
- Masonry base with a cap course, set in a planting bed
- Site protection
- A row of bollards standing in front of the sign
- Lighting
- Not established from the photograph
- VH scope
- Installation
What a Shaped Monument Asks of the Shop
Most monument signs are a box on a base. This one is a profile, and every change in that profile is work.
- The shape is fabricated, not printed. A dome, a pair of minarets and two crescent finials are cuts, forms and welds. A rectangle with the same artwork applied to the face would read as a poster of a building. The reason this one reads as architecture from the drive is that the outline is real. That work happens on the bench in our own shop.
- Two scripts on one face is a layout problem. English and Arabic do not stack like two lines of the same alphabet. The pairing has to be balanced at full size rather than scaled up from a small proof, which is design work that has to be settled before anything is cut.
- A twelve-item list is a directory, not a headline. The name has to read from the road. The program list only has to read from the gate, at the speed of a car turning in. Those are two different type sizes doing two different jobs, and putting them on one face is the whole trick.
- The base does the standing. A monument is a small structure with a sign on top of it. Hidden steel runs from the footing up into the sign, and the concrete goes in below frost depth so the sign stays plumb through a Philadelphia winter. The masonry is the finish, not the support.
- Bollards are cheaper than a rebuild. A monument sits at bumper height at an entrance drive. The row of posts across the front of this one is the reason a delivery van backing up is an inconvenience instead of a masonry job.
- Zoning first. Height and area limits for free-standing signs vary block by block in the city. Our surveys and permitting team pulls the rules for the address before the shape is drawn, because a profile is expensive to redraw.
A community building is not a storefront. Nobody drives past it deciding to stop on impulse. People arrive already looking for it, often for the first time, often for one specific program out of twelve. The sign has to confirm the address, name the place, and answer which of the twelve things happens here, all in the seconds before the turn.
We build monuments across Philadelphia and the surrounding counties, and we service what we set.
Want a Monument at Your Entrance?
Send us the address and a photo of the building. We will check what is allowed there, draw the sign onto the entrance, and price it.
267-344-8492