And the Lumen goes to...

The offices of Fisher Marantz Stone (FMS) are ablaze with fresh lumens--Lumen Awards, that is. The New York section of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNY) bestowed its annual honors upon leading lights in the field of architectural design at a dinner held in June at the Grand Ballroom of the Manhattan Center, and by evening's end FMS had claimed five for its trophy racks, two for the same project.

The dual winner was the Miho Museum in Shigaraki, Japan, which, like many of this year's winners, appealed to the jury members for the scope and/or duration of the work involved. Paul Marantz and Hank Forrest won an Award of Merit and a Citation, respectively, for the interior and exterior of the structure, which were deemed different enough to merit two awards. Designed by I.M. Pei Architects, the museum is lit like a lantern at night, with a combination of techniques used to accentuate the minimalist interior and its unique tunnel entryway. From the stage, Marantz and Forrest thanked Alicia Kapheim for her work on a project that grew in size and took years to complete.

Richard Renfro, formerly with FMS, and Barry Citrin took home a Citation for another lengthy endeavor, the restoration of Grand Central Terminal, which captured the cover of the May 1999 issue of Lighting Dimensions. Beyer Blinder Belle was the architect. The J. Paul Getty Center and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, another little job for Marantz and Scott J. Hershman, won a Lumen Award; Richard Meier and Partners was the architect for this much-acclaimed project, the daylighting techniques of which were explored in the April 1998 issue of LD. FMS's catch was completed by a Lumen Award for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, with Kapheim, Forrest, and Charles G. Stone II taking their bows at the podium.

That project (whose architect was Barton Myers and Associates) also claimed an IALD Award at Lightfair in San Francisco, as did two other "Lumen-ous" projects. Two teams of LDs--Chou Lien, Richard Dorfman, and Jung Soo Kim at H.M Brandston & Partners, and Kyle Chepulis, Henry Chepulis, and Matthew Smith of Technical Artistry--won a Lumen Award for the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, whose architect was Ralph Applebaum Associates. And Francesca Bettridge and Daniel Rogers of Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design harpooned a Lumen to accompany its IALD prize for the Estuarine Habitats and Coastal Fisheries Center in Lafayette, LA, designed by Eskew + Guidry Beazley Architects.

Bettridge was a ubiquitous presence at the podium, as her firm claimed a total of four honors. She and Rogers won a Lumen Feltman, for retail projects, for the Tourneau TimeMachine store in New York (left), a three-story Levi, Sanchik, & Associates design with cost-effective illumination. She and Michael Hennes won an Award of Merit for the Brooklyn Academy of Music (right); they used low-cost, simple fixtures to jazz up the Beaux-Arts facility, designed by Hardy Holtzman Pfeiffer Associates. And, rounding out a glowing year for Lumens, she and Carroll Cline concealed lights within the details of an eye-catching Polshek Partnership Architects design for the Santa Fe Opera Theatre in New Mexico, which received a Citation at the presentation, and was covered in the August/September 1998 issue of TCI (now called Entertainment Design).

Besides FMS and CBBLD, a few other firms took multiple turns in the winner's circle. Technical Artistry claimed the EPRI Lumen, for an energy-efficient project, for the Dzanga-Sangha Rainforest Diorama at the American Museum of Natural History, an exhibit designed by Ralph Applebaum Associates. Fiber-optic lighting mimics sunlight and adds shadow and contours to the African-themed space. While Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones clambered about its exterior in Entrapment, Lien, Kim, and Scott Matthews at H.M. Brandston escaped with an Award of Merit for the beacon-type lighting of Petronas Twin Towers (above) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the tallest project ever to win a Lumen, designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates.

Citations went out to three additional projects. Sowinski Sullivan Architects, Thomas Bousley Associates, and Lee Weintraub Landscape Architecture joined state and city officials in an effort to beautify an abandoned waterfront site and wrecked structures, resulting in Gantry Plaza State Park in Hunters Point, NY. Domingo Gonzalez Designs topped off the urban renewal with enlivening illumination. Horton Lees Lighting Design Inc. integrated cerebral and abstract architectural concepts devised by architect Peter Eisenman and the owner of the Dakota Jackson furniture showroom in Los Angeles. In Princeton, NJ, Susan Brady and Kim Loren at Susan Brady Lighting Design Inc. punched up a suburban office park environment with high-tech lighting for the offices of Bloomberg, whose architect was Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill LLP.

LD Marsha Stern and LD's own William L. Maiman, a juror this year, were among those who provided behind-the-scenes assistance that kept the show running smoothly, earning the thanks of past IESNY president Gary Dulanski and the gratitude of attendees. Look forward to more Lumens in the new millennium.