The Crown Estate, Shaftesbury, the Regent Street Association and the New West End Company joined Grosvenor this month to light up London landmarks in the capital’s first major light festival, Lumiere London.
The West End took centre stage as 3D light projections, interactive installations and other works of light brought architecture to life across sites in Mayfair, Piccadilly, Carnaby Street and Trafalgar Square, attracting throngs of visitors at a usually quiet time of the year – too many on Saturday as the lights had to be temporarily turned off for safety reasons.
Leicester Square was transformed into an exotic, illuminated tropical garden, while in the heart of Mayfair, a red phone box turned into an aquarium filled with goldfish.
At Oxford Circus, pedestrians looked up to see a vast aerial sculpture, 1.8 London, constructed from thousands of feet of knotted twine. The sculpture, by American artist Janet Echelman, was inspired by the 2011 Japanese tsunami, which sped up the earth’s rotation and temporarily shortened the length of the day by 1.8 microseconds.
In Jermyn Street, the French artist Cédric Le Borgne created larger-than-life human figures resembling guardian angels perched on and around buildings.
To coincide with the festival, Shaftesbury commissioned a permanent LED monolith at Carnaby Street by London artist Julian Opie.
Argent’s King’s Cross was also part of the nocturnal art trail, with the scheme’s Granary Building a backdrop for an animated circus show.
Argent’s senior projects director Anna Strongman said: “Over the past seven years, we have transformed the 67-acre development into a vibrant mix of new and restored places and spaces, and this festival allowed us to show them off in the most spectacular way.”
The exhibition was curated by arts company Artichoke and ran on 14-17 January.
