Color Fuses

Color Fuses consists of 35 bands of painted color and corresponding illumination wrapping the base of the Minton-Capehart Federal Building. Commissioned by GSA’s Art in Architecture program in 1974, the piece emerged from collaboration between Glaser and building architect Evans Woolen, who shared the goal of making the austere building more appealing to the general public.  Color Fuses celebrates the interplay of color and light to make the stark, heavy building appear to float weightlessly. To further this effect, Glaser programmed the exterior perimeter lighting, visible from dusk to dawn, to illuminate his mural in a slow rise and fall sequence at night. This rhythm alludes to the gradual rising and setting of the sun and the timeless wonder associated with the qualities of light as it shifts and reveals itself on the horizon.

At the time of its installation, Color Fuses was one of the world’s largest contiguous murals, measuring 672 feet in length. Although the effect of the lighting was minimal when it was originally installed and had to be abandoned, after a 2014 restoration with digitally-controlled LED technology the combination of color and light finally enhances and enlivens the pedestrian experience as the artist intended.

Milton Glaser (b. 1929) is a celebrated graphic designer, probably best known for inventing the iconic “I [heart] NY” logo in 1977.  At the time he was commissioned to create Color Fuses, Glaser owned his own design firm and was one of the founders, and chief designer, of New York magazine (1968).

Read more about this artwork at http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/141903 and http://blog.art21.org/2012/08/28/no-preservatives-restored-and-renewed-milton-glasers-1975-artwork-color-fuses/