The inauguration of the second stage of the Illuminated River project has been announced in London. The installation designed by the artist Leo Villareal in collaboration with the architecture studio Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands consists of the lighting of five bridges over the River Thames that are added together to the four bridges illuminated in 2019 during the first phase of the plan that aims to fill the river that runs through the English capital with light.

The bridges of Blackfriars Road, Waterloo, Golden Jubilee, Westminster, and Lambeth will be illuminated in spring joining the previously illuminated bridges of London, Cannon Street, Southwark, and Millennium, thus creating the largest public art commission in the world, transforming the natural axis and its banks from the light that turns each of these infrastructures works into an art installation.

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Leo Villareal. (1967 Albuquerque, New Mexico), a pioneer of LED light sculpture, creates intricate light installations for both gallery and public settings. 

He came to international prominence through his project, The Bay Lights, which illuminated the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 2013. Initially conceived as a two-year display, the popularity of The Bay Lights led it to be transformed into a permanent installation, now an iconic visual element of the San Francisco’s landscape.

Leo Villareal focuses on identifying the governing structures of systems, and is interested in base units such as pixels and binary code. His installations use custom, artist-created code, which constantly changes the frequency, intensity, and patterning of lights through sequencing. Villareal has created temporary and permanent light works and sculptures for public spaces and museums including the Morris and Sophie Chang Building, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; Rice University, Houston, Texas; and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Villareal’s winning submission for the 2016 Illuminated River International Design Competition, uses light and colour in an integrated composition to enliven the bridges of the River Thames in London.
Alex Lifschutz. Founding Principal of Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands. Following a degree in sociology and psychology at Bristol University and research in cognitive psychology, Alex studied at the Architectural Association in London. He joined Foster Associates in 1977, worked on the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank from 1981 to 1985 and in 1986 he formed Lifschutz Davidson with the late Ian Davidson.

Alex has had a 25-year relationship with communities and businesses on London’s South Bank, working with the Coin Street Community Builders to regenerate an area that was not long ago a twilight zone in the city, through development of co-operative housing, commercial ventures to support it and new urban realm initiatives. The groundbreaking OXO Tower mixed-use development was a major catalyst in the regeneration of the area which has gone on to become one of the most popular destinations in London.

Recently completed projects include the new Indoor Sports Centre for the University of Birmingham, Bonhams auction house in Mayfair and Foyles flagship bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Ongoing work ranges from a masterplan for 11,000 homes at Barking Riverside and a new London suburb at Kidbrooke Village, to the Institute of Future Living, the first phase of the new campus for UCL in East London. 

He recently guest edited an edition of AD titled ‘Loose-fit Architecture, designing buildings for change’. Alex is past president of the Architectural Association.
Published on: February 7, 2021
Cite: "Second stage. Five more bridges will light up the Thames in 2021 by Leo Villareal Studio and Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands" METALOCUS. Accessed January 22, 2025
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/second-stage-five-more-bridges-will-light-thames-2021-leo-villareal-studio-and-lifschutz-davidson-sandilands> ISSN 1139-6415
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