The New York City-based architectural lighting firm of Fisher Marantz Stone swept the 2001 Lumen Awards, with a total of four awards: two Lumen 2001 Awards; one Citation; and one Award of Merit, to add to the firm’s long list of kudos. Held at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan on Wednesday, June 13, the 2001 Lumen Awards were presented by the New York section of the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society). Nearly 400 lighting industry professionals attended a seated dinner preceded by a cocktail hour with many guests chatting on the outdoor terrace, watching as the sun set over the Hudson River.
Fisher Mararntz Stone (FMS) won an Award of Merit for Masterful Use of New Technology for their use of fiber optics to light the Royal Promenade Oculus, an aluminum, glass, and fiber-optic sculpture by Larry Kirkland, on Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas. FMS also garnered a Citation for their lighting of the Conran Shop and Gustavino’s Restaurant at Bridgemarket underneath the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan.
FMS was also awarded two Lumen 2001 Awards. The first is for their magical, ethereal blue lighting of The Rose Center for Earth and Space Science (above), the new wing of the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. This dramatic glass cube was designed by Polshek Partnership architects. Their second Lumen 2001 was for the dramatic lighting of Audrey Jones Beck Building at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX.
Three additional Lumen 2001 Awards were presented as follows: to the firm of Thompson + Sears, LLC, for the restoration lighting of the historic 1907 Hoboken Train Station Waiting Room in Hoboken, New Jersey; to Domingo Gonzalez Associates for their glowing illumination of the George Washington Bridge towers; and to Arc Light Design for their low-cost, minimalist lighting scheme for Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture in Brooklyn, NY.
The Lumen 2001 Feltman Award for Retail Design was presented to Cooley Monato Studio lighting designers for the new lower level cosmetics department at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan. Lumen Citations included Special Recognition for Inventive Use of Color to Johnson Schwinghammer Lighting Design for their eye-popping lighting at Pod, a new restaurant in Philadelphia, with interiors designed by the Rockwell Group. A Citation for Technical and Artistic Achievement went to Matthew Tanteri Associates and James Carpenter Design Associates for "Light Threshold," a shaft of golden atmospheric light which cuts across the landscape. This was created for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Additional citations were awarded to Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design for the Raleigh Durham Airport Parking Garage in North Carolina, to Ann Kale Associates for the lighting of Sea Grill Restaurant at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, and to Gary Gordon (who was also named a Fellow of the IES this year) for his exquisite lighting of a private residence (with an extensive art collection) in Manhattan.
Lighting designer Anne Militello of Vortex Lighting was the recipient of an Award of Merit (with special recognition of the non-commercial nature of the project) for her kinetic, color-changing façade lighting of The New 42nd Street Studio Building in Manhattan, designed by architects Platt Byard Dovell.
Philip Ciadella, outgoing president of the New York Section of the IES, welcomed the new president, Clara Powell of Philips Lighting. The awards were presented to the winners by Susannah Zweighaft of AKF Engineers and Carrie Knowlton of the architectural lighting firm HLW International, standing in for Shoshanna Segal, who had just given birth to a baby girl and could not attend the event. The glitch-free A/V for the evening was by Bill Maiman of ESTA, with lighting by Marcia Stern adding great flair to the event. Gary Dulanski served (as always) as a charming and entertaining master of ceremonies.