Walking around the corner of an impressive disused blast furnace, you perceive large round lighting objects are hovering in a seemingly random way over a nearly square place. The five objects are the first „street lights‟ designed by Ingo Maurer. They have been installed on the Place des Hauts-Fourneaux, a rather intimate public space, with a width of 40 metres, closely framed by two opposing disused blast furnaces, and new buildings.
However, the word street light falls short of their extraordinary appeareance, even if they do fulfil this task. GuddeVol is a disk with an opening in the middle (diametre 420 cm, opening 115 cm), kept above the ground at a slight angle by three slender, mat black poles with a length of approximately 5 metres. On the bottom side, several curved openings of various lengths are equipped with recessed LEDs. Around each pole, a circle of LED uplights is fixed. They light up the surface of the disk itself, turning the slices into bright white circles that contrast the dark structures of the furnaces above them. The slanting position adds dynamics, and vaguely reminds of UFOs.Ingo Maurer named his design GuddeVol, luxembourgish for ‚Have a good flight„.
On the evening of the inauguration, the objects are immediately embraced by the locals from Esch-sur-Alzette, a town on the border to France, where Luxembourg‟s biggest ironworks were situated until the late 1990s. People flock in the circular puddles of light, chatting, looking up to enjoy the light installation for the blast
furnaces, inaugurated simultaneously with a special light set up and a concert. Children use the bright area between the three legs as stage for spontaneous dances, obviously inspired by the unusual atmosphere.
In the planning phase, Ingo Maurer convinced the client, the Fonds Belval to light up the ground as little as possible, especially avoiding uniform brightness on the ground. The client had requested lighting for the public space around the blast furnaces and the new university that is under construction in Belval. The GuddeVol were carefully designed to provide lighting for the ground while avoiding unwanted upwards scattering of light. This feature was of special importance due to the proximity of the blast furnaces. From the formal point of view, the proposal of a round, white disk roots in the intention to add an „independent‟ shape that does not refer to the surroundings, or pick up any of their characteristics.
Further GuddeVol will be installed this year just round the corner, along and under a central building of the university, the “Maison de Savoire” designed by Baumschlager Eberle. These objects will have an additional light source on the top, underlining the architectural concept of the building.