Published October 14, 2022
SERIES: What's Trending
Please Don’t Touch the Artwork
Top Arts + Culture Design Inspiration
Featuring: AJJN Photography, BASWA Acoustic North America, Bendheim, Giroux Glass, Meteor Lighting, PROSOCO, Pure + FreeForm, Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings, Toshiko Mori Architect/Iwan Baan courtesy of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Vertebrae Art + Architecture
From world-renowned museums, to a skywalk 4,000 feet above the Colorado River, to a most impressive flagship Apple Store that also serves as a community center for learning, discovery, and creativity, Mortarr’s Inspiration feed is brimming with projects, products, and professionals sure to inspire your next project. Consider this a guided tour through the Arts + Culture sector courtesy of the Forum.
Company: PROSOCO
Project: Apple Carnegie Library
Product: Hydroxylating Conversion Treatment
Details: In 2019, the Carnegie Library was reopened to the public with a re-imagined design and purpose in Washington, D.C., as the Apple Carnegie Library. This is Apple’s most extensive historic restoration project, restoring and revitalizing the Beaux-Arts style building once home to Washington, D.C.’s Central Public Library. Originally funded by Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1903, the library will once again be a center for learning, discovery, and creativity for the community, keeping with Carnegie’s vision of a public and free space for all.
Company: BASWA Acoustic North America
Project: Museum of the American Revolution
Product: BASWA Phon Classic Fine 40MM
Details: The Museum of the American Revolution, positioned on the corner of Philadelphia’s bustling Historic District, connects tourists with the American Revolution through education and architecture. Robert A.M Stern Architects designed the 118,000-square-foot museum with the intent to introduce visitors to the American Revolution through stunning displays of historical artifacts. By recommendation of both SH Acoustics and Shen Milsom Wilke, co-acoustical consultant, BASWA Phon sound-absorbing plaster was utilized throughout the museum’s architectural and theater spaces.
Company: Pure + FreeForm
Product: Ceiling Panels in Emerald Copper Finish
Project: Contemplative Court, Smithsonian
Details: The Contemplative Court, one of the signature spaces in the museum, features a glass oculus that allows natural light to filter in through a cascading waterfall, resulting in a quiet reflection. The ceiling required a somber elegance, as well as gloss, to reflect the delicate movement of the water. Natural materials could not be utilized in this ceiling due to weight, UV degradation, and maintenance. The final finish, a mid-gloss blackened copper with green flecks, was designed. The ceiling panels were then perforated to capture the range of light sources, allowing the participant to gaze upward in contemplation.
Company: Giroux Glass
Project: Grand Canyon Skywalk
Product: Multi-Panel Glass Floors and Glass Railing and Guardrail Systems
Details: Giroux Glass was hired to fit and install all of the glass for the Grand Canyon Skywalk – a transparent cantilevered viewing bridge suspended over the Western rim of the Grand Canyon. The horseshoe-shaped installation extends horizontally over a vertical drop of 4,000 ft to the Colorado River below.
Company: Bendheim
Project: Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
Product: Channel Glass
Details: Bendheim’s double-glazed, Solar textured channel glass is used to create the iconic addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art by Steven Holl Architects. The custom 16”-wide, low-iron glass channels are tempered, sandblasted, and utilize Okapane thermal insulation to improve the thermal performance of the building, as well as enhance its aesthetics. During the day, the glass fills the interior with high-quality, diffused natural light, while at night the interior lighting makes the insulated, sandblasted glass “lenses” glow like lanterns.
Company: AJJN Photography
Project: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Details: The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, nicknamed "the Met," is the largest art museum in the USA. In 2019, it was the fourth most visited art museum in the world.
Company: Toshiko Mori Architect/Iwan Baan courtesy of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
Project: Artists’ Residence and Cultural Center
Details: Located in a remote community seven hours from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and near the border of Mali, Artists’ Residence and Cultural Center serves as a cultural and social hub for a network of isolated villages. In addition to housing an artists’ residency for local and visiting artists, the center serves the community as a gathering space, performance center, public library, tree nursery, water source, and base for agricultural training and economic development.
Company: Vertebrae Art + Architecture
Project: Fat Fringe
Details: Fat Fringe is a canopy made from die-cut paper modules. It is suspended from a curved armature, swooping down into the gallery space below. It explores the potential for defining space with sliced and folded paper.
Company: Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings
Product: Fluropon 70% PVDF Coatings
Project: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Details: Bronze-colored panels cover the tiered exterior of the building, perforated in patterns that reference the history of African American craftsmanship. Each of the 3,600 customized, bronze-colored, cast-aluminum panels reflects the design of ironwork by enslaved craftsmen in Charleston and New Orleans. The density of the pattern varies to control the amount of sunlight and transparency allowed into the interior, and the bronze color stands in stark contrast to the building’s marble and limestone neighbors.
Company: Meteor Lighting
Product: REV 6 and REV 8 Prime
Project: Victoria Legislative Chamber
Details: Overlooking Victoria's majestic inner harbor, the Parliament buildings and surrounding areas are located in the traditional territories of the Lekwungen people. The architectural splendor of the Parliament buildings recently upgraded its interior lighting with Meteor's tunable white offerings in the REV 6 and REV 8 Prime, totaling 104 luminaires.