Bent Beyond Recognition

"Glass as flexible and nimble as the creative mind? Sure! But this is no ordinary glass- it's BENTEMP" read a magazine ad. I was at first quick to judge the ad and pass on to the next page to find something more interesting. Nonetheless, I soon realized the spiral column-like structure was made out of glass! "Ooooh . . . colorful and it lights up!" I secretly chuckled to

myself. My child-like senses turned on like a light switch.

After reading the page-long caption, I became very impressed. Alongside the caption was a thumbnail of glass towers designed by Tanaka and Nadel Architects. These spectacular Glass Cylindrical Light Towers can be seen popping out of the ground alongside the famous LAX Gateway. Illuminated at night, the glass towers look like enlarged colorful "Lite Brite" pegs entangled in the loops of busy Los Angeles highways. Although the glass towers capture attention with their impressive size and amazing grace (no pun intended, really), I was mostly intrigued by the anonymity of their presence.

If you were up in the air 15,000 feet and rising, the image of a "Lite Brite" creation might be more convincing- just reach out of the tiny window and pick up the towers and strike them into the ground again. As it is, the staggering Glass Cylindrical Light Towers warp many notions of glass as an architectural medium. You might not think this at first. But looking at the towers from a bird's eye view, you would see something remarkable. The tower is structured from a sheet of glass curled up like a paper scroll. In an almost neoclassical approach to these freestanding columns, the title that reads "bent beyond recognition" comforts me with some truth. I love it when I can look at a building, or a piece of art, or a shoe for that matter, and not know what it is made of. The whole journey of figuring out how it got there (process), with what (material), and exploring the use of architecture of the object (design) is the fun part. There is no rule that says an artist must only draw with a pencil. Mozart not only played the piano, he played five different instruments! Jackson Pollock used more than just paint and a brush- he used scraps of metal, marbles, string, you name it. My group's Stone Soup in college was made up of "misfit" materials: ribbon, twine, alphabet foam cut-outs, paper plate, wire hanger, and a once-loved teddy bear. Tip: whether you are bending sheets of glass or have a handful of tiny lighted pegs to plot at your discretion, allow your mediums to be "as flexible and nimble as your creative mind".