This Sculpture In Chicago Is Made From Over 3000 Hand Blown Glass Orbs

Artist Wolfgang Buttress, has completed Lucent, a new sculpture created as part of the lobby refurbishment of the iconic John Hancock Center in Chicago.

About the sculpture

Deriving its name from the Latin Lucere, meaning ‘to shine’, this sculptural installation is based on a star-map. The piece draws on celestial mapping research by astrophysicist Dr Daniel Bayliss at the Australian National University.

Lucent is a 4 meter-diameter hemisphere perforated with 3,115 holes representing stars visible with the naked eye from Earth’s Northern hemisphere. Fiber-optic cables emerge from each point, emitting a glowing ambient light.

Affixed to these points are hand-blown glass orbs that diffuse the light. These points are triangulated, creating delicate stainless steel filigree.

The Southern hemisphere is suggested in the ceiling reflection and a sense of infinity is implied by a double reflection set-up between the reflecting pool bellow and mirrored polished steel above.

Lucent was engineered and fabricated by Vector Custom Fabricating, and the 3,100+ glass orbs were hand blown by glass artists at Ignite Glass Studios.

‘I am interested in exploring the relationship between micro and macro scales and the connections between them. Some forms and phenomena occur across scales from the cosmic to the microscopic. We are all stardust. The use of scale can remind us of universality and wonder.’ – Wolfgang Buttress