Situated in a Rapid Transit Station in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the huge art work “Emerald Laminata” simulates a water-like surface, representing a shimmering lighting effect in a three-dimensional glass structure. Artists, architects, engineers and lighting designers from Canada, Europe and Taiwan worked together to complete this remarkable installation.

Idea

Emerald Laminata is a public installation artwork located at the Kaohsiung International Airport Station (R4 Station) in Taiwan. In order to show Kaohsiung City’s natural and cultural feature – the sea, the sun, the blue sky, the Love River and the Port of Kaohsiung to passengers and visitors, the city government commissioned Master Lutz Haufschild to lead an international team for this installation art project. His team member included a Digital Artist, Christian Karl Janssen, and a lighting designer Arne Fiedler from the Germany-based lighting design studio, made-by-light.

Lutz is a Canadian artist who has done some masterpieces for internationally famous infrastructures like Westminster Abbey and Vancouver International Airport. Before he started this project, he visited Taiwan in order to know this island in person so that he could understand the country better. Inspired by the traditional jade artworks and the rivers and sea of the island, Lutz designed a pair of glass-made façade to represent his image of Kaohsiung.

Structure

Emerald Laminata is constituted by two sides: the A side “Tree of Life” and the B side “Infinity,” each of them measures around 15 meters long and 3.5 meters high making it the biggest three-dimensional glass sculpture installation artwork in the world.

At the beginning, Lutz drew 3-D virtual fabrication models by computer to illustrate the complex structure in his mind. After deciding on all the details, he digitized two clay models and printed the templates onto paper so the team could carve 10,200 sheets of turquoise glass (about 70 tones in total) into shapes the Lutz wanted. All carved sheets needed to be polished and burnished before team members started to combine them together according to Lutz’s original design. When the painstaking process was finished, the virtual fabrication finally turned into the real, big installation. Due to the slightly different contour of every sheet, the three-dimensional structure appears as shimmering waves refracting sunshine into your eyes.

Refraction and Lighting Effects

Glass is a good medium for light to produce magnificent effects. Lutz realized that the KHH Station has a huge skylight for light to shine in, so he and Arne Fiedler managed to position the artwork at the perfect location for the “wave” to interact with the sunshine and create a vibrant image for the vivid Kaohsiung City.

To add more marvelous effects, Janssen, Fiedler and structural engineers from Schmidtt+Thielmann (Wiesbaden, Germany) designed a lighting system controlled by computers to generate colorful effects. When lighting fixtures installed behind the wall project light through the three-dimensional glass sculpture, the 4 cm to 22 cm thick wave structure will shimmer like fluid jade or a rainbow. The light color changes time to time so visitors can also see various lighting effects by this grandiose installation art work.