BIG Heart Gets a Second Chance in Times Square
(Courtesy BIG / Times Square Alliance)
Last year, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) got their heart broken by the Times Square Alliance, which chose a hula-hoop happy design by Freecell Studio for its annual Times Square Valentine’s installation. Now a spokesperson from the Alliance admits that they always “loved” BIG’s design and were willing to give it a second chance. This year, the Alliance didn’t go online looking for love. Instead, they went back to a former flirtation, and chose BIG’s entry from last year, shunning the possibility of outside suitors.
BIG calls its 10-foot high glowing heart sculpture “BIG♥NYC.” The design affair was something of a ménage à quatre, with Flatcut (the fabricator), Local Projects (the interaction designers), and Zumtobel (the lighting designers) pitching in on the effort. Four-hundred LED-lit acrylic tubes wrap a cube that bounds a suspended heart. Not surprisingly, when touched the heart grows brighter.
Coronary Blockage
A giant ice heart by Moorhead & Moorhead will be installed in Times Square next Thursday. (Courtesy Moorhead & Moorhead)
With Valentines Day barely a week away, the Times Square Alliance is eschewing flowers and candy yet again. Instead, they’re sending New Yorkers a giant designer valentine for the second year in a row, as Moorhead & Moorhead will stage an installation adjacent the TKTS Booth beginning next Thursday. For the inaugural effort, Gage/Clemenceau created a laser-cut heart as flashy as the surrounding billboards. This year’s entry is rather more demur, as Granger Moorhead explained. “We looked at last year’s entry, ‘Two Tons of Love,’ and, well, at the end of the day you’re just left with two tons of stuff, not to knock that project,” Moorhead said. “We didn’t want to do something that would be there at the end. We wanted something more ephemeral.” Read More
Their Heart Will Go On (in Times Square)
A rendering of the 10-foot-high heart, Gage/Clemenceau's Valentine to the city. (Courtesy Rubenstein Communications)
Correction: Apparently, we can’t keep our Marc/ks straight. In a previous version of this post, quotes attributed to Bailly were incorrectly attributed to Gage. Apologies all around.
UPDATE: We’ve added some shop photos Mark (not Marc) kindly sent over.
While not quite a standalone building, digitally-driven firm (and 2006 New Practices winners) Gage/Clemceau Architects will celebrate its coming out on February 11, when Marc Clemenceau Bailly and Mark Foster Gage deliver their “Valentine to Times Square.” As Bailly told AN, “This is our first big thing that we’ve built, outside of a few exhition pieces and some interiors work.” Read More
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