Triforium (Los Angeles)
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| Triforium | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Joseph Young |
| Year | 1975 |
| Dimensions | 18 m (60 ft); 6.1 m diameter (20 ft) |
| Location | Los Angeles |
| 34°03′15″N 118°14′28″W / 34.054135°N 118.241129°W | |
| Owner | public |
Triforium is a 60-foot high (18 m), concrete public art sculpture mounted with 1,494 Venetian glass prisms, light bulbs, and an internal 79-bell carillon located at Fletcher Bowron Square in the Los Angeles Mall at Temple and Main streets in the Civic Center district of Downtown Los Angeles.[1]
The mall's architect Robert Stockwell commissioned artist Joseph Young to create the sculpture, and it was installed in 1975.[2] Young's original plans called for a kinetic sculpture, which would use motion sensors and a computer controlled system to detect and translate the motions of passersby into patterns of light and sound displayed by the Venetian glass prisms and carillon.
Young predicted that his public artwork would eventually become known as "the Rosetta Stone of art and technology" and boasted that it was the world's first "polyphonoptic" tower. He also said that Triforium was a tribute to the unfinished, kaleidoscopic nature of Los Angeles. In the original concept, Young intended the sculpture to project laser beams into space, which would have made it the world's first astronomical beacon. Budgetary restrictions, however, curtailed this design element. The initial cost of the sculpture was $925,000, and it was dedicated on December 12, 1975, although an electrical snafu delayed the musical portion's debut.
According to Michael Several, an authority on early public art projects in Los Angeles, the Triforium sculpture incorporated three two-legged concrete pillars, each supporting a bank of multicolored Venetian glass prisms (1,494 in all). The installation also originally included a custom-built Gerhard Finkenbeiner electronic 79-note glass-bell carillon with two octaves of English bells, and two octaves of Flemish bells, which were synchronized to lighting effects contained within the glass prisms. Meant to play "everything from Beethoven to the Bee Gees",[3] the carillon was operated manually, or by computer, with the resulting sound played through the speaker system built into the Triforium.[4] Unfortunately, the primitive computer originally installed in the structure to synchronize the lights and music was plagued with problems.
