Sounding 1994

12th Street between Arch and Race Streets, Philadelphia, PA

Commissioned by:
Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority

Dimensions:
H 20’ x W 120’ x 507’ (6 x 36.5 x 154.5 m)

Materials:
Light, Electrical Fixtures, Bell Tone, Aluminum, Gold

Elements:
Two Gilt Parabolic Discs, Struck with Intense Light
“Shadow” Tone of the Liberty Bell
Cobalt Blue Arch of Light
Wave of White Light
Blue Lights Defining Beams
Blue Constellation

Site Description:
The New Philadelphia Convention Center occupies two city blocks, Arch and Race Streets. The section of 12th Street, between Arch and Race, is thus vaulted and continues its path through the convention center.

Project Description:

Sounding introduces a series of fluctuating events synchronized to the flow of traffic in a vaulted, full city block of downtown Philadelphia. A person entering the north access of the 12th Street Underpass would first perceive an arc of cobalt blue light in the distance that outlines the tunnel’s south exit. Two parallel lines of individual blue lights punctuate the perspective along the tunnel’s beams and lead the eye to the archway.

When the traffic light turns red, all vehicles come to a stop and the illuminated archway dims. A bell sounds, rich and full, echoing out into the vaulted space. The tone triggers a wave of arced, white neon lights overhead that illuminate and darken in quick succession moving north. In chorus with this movement, the individual blue lights along the beams extinguish. Randomly placed blue “constellation” lights begin to glow, forming a sky of the vaulted ceiling above.

When the traffic light turns green and the vehicles begin to move, the wave of light returns as a diffuse “echo” among the parallel beams of individual lights. These lights darken, moving southward along both sidewalks before disappearing. The blue archway now relights, and the constellation lights extinguish.

Sounding addresses the dichotomy between the static nature of the architectural construct and the dynamic nature the individual’s perception of the space. Investigating varying patterns and velocities, the work questions interrelationships between order and disorder, motion and stasis.