Built in 1955 and restored in 2014, Mellon Square has been an important part of Downtown Pittsburgh for generations. This week, the iconic urban park gets the newest chapter in its story, a light-based, holiday-season art installation called “Aurora.”
The piece consists of 700 translucent, diamond-shaped plastic panels hung on a huge aluminum frame in the shape of a double-crested wave that spans the small park and its fountain. After dark, colored lights play on the panels as they rotate in the breeze.
The work will debut Sat., Nov. 23, as part of Light Up Night festivities, and will remain into January.
“Aurora,” commissioned by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, is by local artist Joshua Challen Ice, who patterned the panels after the familiar — and very mid-century-modern — terrazzo design on the park’s deck.
“It’s almost imagining as if the floor, the ground of the park, was lifting up and floating away with the breeze,” Ice said.
Theatrical lighting will illuminate the panels in cyan, magenta and yellow — primary hues that will shift and blend as the panels move, Ice said.
The work’s two arches are 10 feet and 25 feet tall, respectively, allowing visitors to view the work from below, as with its namesake celestial display. But “Aurora” is also visible from nearby streets and through the windows of adjacent buildings, including the Omni William Penn Hotel.
“Aurora” grew from the Parks Conservancy’s open call to artists for ideas to enliven Mellon Square during the winter months. The Conservancy worked with partners including the City of Pittsburgh, arts nonprofit Shiftworks, and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. Funders include the Benter Foundation and Eden Hall Foundation.
Ice, a Pittsburgh native, studied theatrical lighting design at Point Park University. His art has been featured at local galleries including SPACE and the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art.
Complementary programming in Mellon Square, both this Saturday and throughout the season, will feature heated igloos, a hot-cocoa booth, “holi-sleighs” and live music performances, including holiday choirs.
