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Saturday, 15 March 2008 | Levent OZLER
Andromeda Lights the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre
Lights with the Tobia Scarpa Signature Decorate the Multipurpose Centre for Music, Theatre, Opera and Dance
The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre is an innovative multipurpose centre dedicated to music, theatre, education and culture. It opened recently in Atlanta (Georgia) with the aim of encouraging experiences able to promote access to the arts and stimulate the quality of the city's economic growth.
Home of the Atlanta Opera and Atlanta Ballet, it is the result of a cultural investment worth 145 million dollars centred around the ability of the architecture and decorative elements to boost urban improvement.
The symbolism and image are therefore of fundamental importance to express the impetus towards beauty, art and innovation, including in terms of the sentiments.
 In this context, Andromeda with its light sculptures was called on to provide decorative elements able to stimulate the emotions, characterise the spaces and express the Centre's artistic vocation.
The architectural structure, work of the Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates, Inc. studio, consists in a 2750 seat theatre, ball and conference rooms, internal courtyards and terraces, restaurants and bars. Impressive in its asymmetrical linearity, the Energy Centre stands out on the city's skyline with its characteristic squashed spiral shape. The majestic glazed façade gives the structure a sense of lightness and provides a view of the lobby, the grand alabaster stairs and spectacular Andromeda light sculptures which shine in the night, characterising the profile of the building.
 A result obtained thanks to the versatility of the Nastro collection with the Afra and Tobia Scarpa signature... nine light sculptures with both the glass and metal elements made entirely by hand. Designed and made to measure, the support structures are in gilded metal, each decorated with 250 Murano glass ribbons, making a total weight of about 400 kg.
The combination of colours dialogues with the tones of the interiors, refracting the light of the ribbons which range from transparent crystal to gold leaf. The material qualities of the work are set in a dimension of great aesthetic lightness. Characteristics which have made the Andromeda Ribbons the iconographic element characterising the identity of the Centre, thanks to the dramatic effect of the gilded silhouettes standing out against the spectacular curtain wall of the façade.
A significant achievement from a construction point of view as well given the particular location of the works. Positioned at varying levels at a height of 20 metres, they are arranged in an irregular line which oscillates for the entire length of the front of the building, creating a harmonious movement which animates the entire lobby.
 "For Andromeda, this was above all a challenge and also recognition of our ability to develop contract projects in such a land as the USA where we have created some of our most important works in the hotels and residential sector but now also in the world of entertainment" says Gianluca Vecchi, Chairman of Andromeda.
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