Spanish Bells

According to chief architect and lighting designer Franco, each bell consists of diagonal and vertical columns, compression and traction rings and stand on 80-mm-diameter painted steel tubes. Each bell surface consists of 2-mm stainless steel and they are illuminated with LED lamps. Each bell produces different effects by day with sunlight and at night with artificial lights.

“Each bell has a different ephemeral installation and according to different thematics is able to change each year,” Franco adds. “Bell #1: Rosette. The white bell shows an installation as a tribute to the monastery´s rosette. Its stone structure, plumb substructure and colored pieces of glass are reinterpreted in an overlapping layer system made of aluminum. Bell #2: Kaleidoscope. The yellow bell gets thinner to show a marvelous kaleidoscope that reflects sky, city lights and the citizen. As a giant piece of ice glass, the movement experience of the visitor will be [similar to being] inside a big kaleidoscope that expands its reflections all around the ground below. Bell #3: Xylophone. The blue bell acts as a giant interactive musical instrument that captures the movements of the people, and transforms them into light and sound impulses, both amplified by the mirror steel bell.”

Ilméx (Ximenez Illumination Group), Puente Genil, Spain, was the bells’ installer/manufacturer; and the general contractor was Citelum, Barcelona. Fernando Cabrera, export department manager at Ilméx, says the bells have “a high value of citizen implication and urban connection.”

“[This] is based on a conic self-carrier bell that does not need façade subjections,” he says. “This structure is identified with a color, and [the bell is] made of stainless polished steel. As a mirror, the outside face of the bell reflects the sky and the environment, minimizing its presence. But when the visitor comes inside [the bell], the polished steel amplifies every lighting effect surrounding, multiplying and melting the reflections of the installation and the citizen.”

Franco says metal was really important for two reasons. “Polished metal acts as a mirror showing the environment outside, minimizing its presence—but at the same time—inside expanding the reflections of every lighting installation we introduce. A single bulb produces amazing curves of light in the metal walls, and the conic curvature increases them. Secondly, steel profiles and plates allow us to create big structures with small sections of material, making the installation lighter. It was important not only for the visual aspect, but for other important questions as transporting, joining, etc.”
Cabrera says the bells’ production was subject to a strict quality assurance system, supervised by Franco, which called for the individual checking of each and every part made, to obtain the final product. “We took Franco´s concept and ideas, and transformed them into a unique, spectacular lighting project. Transforming the dream into a real and interactive element; this was a real challenge.” Franco says it is satisfying as a designer to watch his designs being used and well received. “The [bells’] reaction is a sunrise and of course, lots of selfies,” he adds.

JUDGES APPRECIATION

2019 Metal Architecture Design Awards judge Lewis McNeel, AIA, an associate at Lake|Flato Architects Inc., San Antonio, says he likes the bells because he enjoys seeing “experimental, even fragments of buildings being played with to see if new aesthetic possibilities or phenomena can come out of some familiar materials.” “[It shows] off cool possibilities of metal, that’s why I appreciate it,” he adds. “As an object or sculpture, it’s lovely and beautiful.”

Awards judge Charles Bloszies, FAIA, SE, LEED AP, principal, Office of Charles F. Bloszies FAIA Ltd., San Francisco, says the bells are an interesting public art piece and theyremind him of the Chicago’s Cloud Gate art piece, AKA the Bean, a stainless steel public sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park. “It draws a lot of people to look at a great example of metal,” he says. Awards judge Steven Ginn, principal architect of Steven Ginn Architects, Omaha, Neb., says he likes the carnival quality of the bells. “They really do inspire and awe from an art and visual perspective. I do appreciate them for that.”