The 10th and Mission stair tower forms an architectural gesture that has a high degree of visibility along Mission and surrounding streets: its prominence makes it a beacon in the City.
Veil is a cascading diaphanous curtain attached to the inside of the tower’s glass wall system. Cascades of color and form migrate from the bottom of the tower to the top. The transparent tower faces south permitting light to pass through it on three sides while the veil – made of refractive glass beads – produces the effect of cathedral windows by transforming the color of sunlight to create complex light patterns that strike the sidewalk and the building itself while at night, the work emits has a gentle glowing presence.
Veil is not a fabric in the conventional sense: it is an intricate array of hanging chains made of transparent colored beads threaded through thin cables. When a chain is hung from two points it forms a “catenary.” A catenary is not an arbitrary shape, it is a fundamental form in nature that is part of our everyday visual landscape: in necklaces and in the telephone and electrical wires that crisscross the city. Because we are using several thousand precisely arrayed catenaries, the combined visual effect will be similar to fabric, however space between the chains that permit views into the stairwell and to the sky beyond.
Lead Artists and Designers: Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues
Project Management: Jonathan Kitchens, Benjamin Jenett
Project Team: Julieta Gil, James Jones, Ayodh Kamath, Alison Kung, Luciana Martinez, Allison Porterfield, Caroline Smith, Julianne Weiss, Evan Wiskup
Custom Software Development: www.sparcestudio.com
