ISTANBUL · LUXURY RESIDENCE LOBBY · LASER-CUT STEEL, ELECTROSTATIC POWDER COAT
Blade & B was designed at the request of the architects of a luxury mall and residence project in Istanbul for the residence entrance lobby. One of three works we produced for the project, it was conceived as the first piece anyone meets on entering the lobby.
The work is formed by thin steel blades rising side by side from a base plate. At about two and a half metres tall it answers the scale of the lobby, but through rhythm rather than mass. The gaps between the blades are as much a part of the work as the blades themselves: light passes through them, surfaces open and close as one walks around it, and the sculpture reads differently from every angle.
Blade & B belongs to the tradition of geometric abstraction and of minimalist sculpture that builds rhythm from repeated vertical elements. Steel, an industrial material, was given a satin champagne-gold surface so that it speaks the same language as the lobby’s warm materials.
The making
After the sketch and computer drawing, the blade profiles were laser-cut from steel sheet. The cut pieces were sorted one by one and welded onto the base plate; at this stage the spacing and angles of the blades were checked in the workshop.
Once assembled, the sculpture was finished with an electrostatic powder coat in satin champagne gold. After curing, the weld joints and the surface were gone over by hand one last time, and the work was then installed in the residence lobby.
From the workshop
