Client Sands Casinos | Photographer Alyssha Eve Csuk |
Project Team Jonathan Speirs, Carrie Donahue Bremner | |
Bethlehem Steel used to be one of the largest shipbuilding and steel producers in the world and remains an important symbol of America’s industrial might. As part of the development, several structures, including the blast furnaces that defined the city’s skyline, have been carefully preserved and re-lit.
The community wanted to make sure that the history of the site was not forgotten. Our approach was to preserve the memory using light to retell the story of local steel production.
Carefully programmed LEDs illuminate the structures, with shades of red and blue used to express hot and cool processes. The furnaces appear to smoulder, intensifying in colour as they ‘heat’ up, before cooling off and returning to darkness for periods.
In this way, light plays a role in linking the site to its industrial past – preserving the integrity of the steelworks and celebrating their place in American industrial history. The lighting design was reimagined in 2015 by lighting designers L'Observatoire.