Take a Trip to San Francisco to See This Iconic Light Sculpture
The Bay Lights has returned as a permanent installation
By Kate Hofberg February 16, 2016
The Bay Lights are back!
This past January, artist Leo Villareal‘s glowing LED sculpture The Bay Lights returned to the western span of the Bay Bridge, which in 2014 was renamed the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Bridge for the former state Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor.
Inspired by the bridge’s 75th anniversary, the public art display was originally installed in 2013 but was removed in March 2015 due to expiration of its two-year permit and to allow for maintenance on the bridge’s cables. In an effort to bring the lights back and make them a permanent display, nonprofit arts organization Illuminate the Arts raised $4 million in private funds in late 2014 and on January 30, The Bay Lights installation was officially up and running again.
The Bay Lights is one of the world’s largest LED sculptures at 1.8 miles long and 500 feet high, and features a display of never-repeating light patterns created by 25,000 white LEDs, which are more robust and brighter this time around. The California Department of Transportation worked with Illuminate to replace the original lights with ones that would be more durable and longer-lasting. The public art installation can be best viewed from San Francisco’s waterfront/Financial District area, The Embarcadero.
Conceived and permitted originally as a two-year installation, Illuminate the Arts led the effort to make The Bay Lights a permanent fixture
The lights will shine every night–from dusk until dawn–and are worth making the trek (a short two-hour flight from Seattle) to the Northern California city to see. United Airlines’ Hemispheres magazine listed Villareal’s light display as one of the top 25 new things to see and do around the world.
Illuminate the Arts notes that analysts and city agencies credit the installation for boosting the regional economy by more than $100 million annually and estimates that 50 million people saw the installation in the first two years. Because of the artwork’s success, the arts organization is currently pursuing other projects in the San Francisco area, including LightRail, a subway-responsive light sculpture by George Zisiadis and Stefano Corazza.
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