Hirschfield and Ishii proposal for MLK Library Ceiling Art Competition

1. Jim Hirschfield and Sonya Ishii
Reflection

2. Biography
Jim Hirschfield and Sonya Ishii have worked as a team for nearly three decades.
As a team they have created over 40 public artworks. Hirschfield teaches at the
University of North Carolina where he was Chair of the Art Department from
2010-2017. He has received major awards from both public and private
foundations, including awards from the NEA, North Carolina Arts Council,
Graham Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Art Matters, and the Rockefeller
Foundation. He has a long history in public art and currently serves on the Public
Art Network Advisory Council. Ishii began her professional career as an artist on
one of the very early artist design team projects in Seattle Washington working in
collaboration with design professionals across the spectrum. She too has received a
number of awards, including two North Carolina Artist Fellowships. Together,
Hirschfield and Ishii have created public art projects ranging from freestanding
sculpture to sculptural environments. Influenced by a site’s characteristics, their
designs can be traced to the parameters of a site. At the same time, they strive to
create works that ensure a variety of poetic experiences. When beginning a project,
they search for a theme: Something about a place that inspires and directs their
design. They describe this as finding an inherent truth that lends itself to
becoming visual metaphor. Their projects succeed through strong aesthetic
designs that engage the viewer. Once engaged, a discovery of layers of meaning
begins, providing the participant with a multifaceted and meaningful experience.

3. Beads,
Meter Greeter Lobby, George Bush International Airport, Houston, TX

4. School Spirits
Entry Lobby, Cary Arts Center, Cary, NC

5. Meditation Room,
Doernbcher Children’s Hospital, Portland, OR

6. Concept
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library–
Jorge Luis Borges
In the heart of Florence Italy is a space less known to many. And
yet it is a space that holds its own in a city of awe-inspiring
architecture. Some even describe it as the architect’s
(Michelangelo) most successful architectural endeavor. The
Laurentian Library, designed to hold the voluminous collection of
books owned by the Medici family, is a reading room that
expresses, in the finest manner, the lofty pursuit of knowledge and
enlightenment. The library’s red terra cotta ceramic floor echoes
the designs of the wood ceiling expanding the notion of reflection
to all its presumably intended metaphors.

8. Time and reflection change the sight little by little 'till we
come to understand. - Paul Cezanne
Inspired by our familiarity of the Laurentian Library and at the
same time having a desire to preserve the aesthetics of Mies
van der Rohe, our concept for the Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial Library’s reading room is grounded on the concept of
reflection: Our design reflects the simplicity of line in a Mies
van der Rohe’s building, our intention is for patrons to reflect
upon the self in relation to a greater humanity, while our
objective is for the ceiling to reflect the physical plan of the
reading room. Ultimately we wish for those using the reading
room to consider their existence in relation to the world around
them, and we encourage this by echoing the design of the space
in which they are seated, walking through or viewing from
above (4th floor).

9. I don't like things that can be reproduced. Wood isn't
important in itself but rather in the fact that objects made in it
are unique, simple, unpretentious. - Georg Baselitz
How it happened that Mastro Cherry, carpenter, found a piece
of wood that wept and laughed like a child. Carlo Collodi
Suspended from an aluminum frame, we propose to fabricate
each element of the composition primarily in wood or wood-
veneered honeycomb panels, with a few elements made from
anodized aluminum (table legs, table light fixtures). Using
wood will not only provide a matching color palate of the space
below, but more importantly, give the piece both warmth and
elegance. Our initial inclinations are to represent the reds of the
space with rosewoods, the yellows with maples, and the darks
with ebony.

10. We would use softer elements (linoleums, felts, etc.) to mimic
the tables red central areas and to help absorb sound. Sound
waves will also be broken up by the layered dimensionality of
the design. LED light strips situated within the anodized
aluminum elements above the surfaces of the tables, will
replicate the 3rd floor table lighting as it casts a gentle glow that
illuminates that final component of our proposal: a carefully
selected collection of drawings, maps, renderings and
photographs found in the library’s special collections that
emphasis the history of human achievements and endeavors.

11. Our design accomplishes many, if not all the physical
expectations for the artwork. The design:
– Complements the architects’ vision for a space that
harmonizes with Mies van der Rohe’s modernist
principles of open space and clean geometry,
– Distinguishes the reading room with an iconic visual
feature,
– Creates a thematic connection between the 3rd and 4th
floors,
– Includes an appropriate degree of contrast, color and
detail with multiple viewing angels, as it incorporates
layers of relief without overwhelming the architecture,
– And the work incorporates recommendations for
lighting by merging the natural, age-old material of
wood with state-of-the-art lighting technologies.

12. Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the
things that lie ahead. - Yvonne Woon
A final key component of our design, which fulfills the
sociological and historical expectations for the art is the
incorporation of drawings, maps, renderings and photographs
that provide connections to the library and the community
within an historical context. We plan to scour the DCPL’s
special collections to find and select the most appropriate and
inclusive imagery that will represent Washington, D.C.’s history
and its relationship to the global community. By etching the
images onto metal pages that will be secured to the tabletops
and lit by the incorporated LED lighting, we intend the work to
enable viewers to see themselves (through reflection) as sharing
the past, the present and the future of the library, the city and
the world.

13. Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry.
With both you are working with reality, a material
just as hard as wood. - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

17. 2D Plan

19. Proposed Attachment