LUKOIL headquarters will be crowned by a LIGHT CUBE. The winner of the art object competition has been determined

The Design Territory project summed up the national open competition to develop a design for the architectural and artistic finishing of the facade of the LUKOIL oil company head office on Sretensky Boulevard.

On September 15, 2014, the jury of the national open competition for the development of an art object for the head office of Lukoil, which included the Chief Architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov, President of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov, Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow Alexander Kibovsky, Director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts Marina Loshak, Director of the Vinzavod Center for Contemporary Art Sofia Trotsenko, Head of property relations, housekeeping, transportation, and communication of LUKOIL Yaroslavl Petrashov, and Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art Vasily Tsereteli, at its meeting identified the shortlist of finalists.

It included three works: LIGHT CUBE by Natalia Koptseva and Basil Tarasenko, a dynamic sculpture of swiveling shapes by German architect Vladimir Shulyatiev, and an installation of light strips by architect Konstantin Dushkevich, a representative of the international association of architectural studios CLIC (Moscow, Russia) and Brink Brandenburg Arkitektur (Aarhus, Denmark). After further consultations with the three finalists, the undisputed leader became the LIGHT CUBE project by the Ekaterinburg lighting designers and lighting technicians Natalia Koptseva and Vasily Tarasenko.

The LIGHT CUBE art object is a three-dimensional block of individually controlled LED modules-pixels, and polycarbonate spheres united in vertical groups. According to the authors, the LED installation reflects the dynamic world, the diversity of information flows, and the images that surround us everywhere. A “light cube” on the facade of the Russian oil company headquarters is a symbol of the flame of an oil rig, a symbol of a lighthouse, which indicates the direction of movement, representing the starting point and end point of the route. The vibrancy of the art object and its innovative adaptability is interpreted by the authors as a path to stability and leadership.

“I think this project is the strongest, — Sergey Kuznetsov said at the meeting of the jury. —Firstly, it is a clear, simple, and at the same time very effective technology with great potential. Secondly, a lighthouse is a good representation, it corresponds to the architectural design of the building, and the company’s image.”

The other panelists also picked LIGHT CUBE as the most promising of the three finalists. Recall that the tandem lighting designers from Ekaterinburg a year ago won the “Hermitage in a new light” competition on the artistic illumination of the main headquarters in the Northern capital, St. Petersburg. Now Natalia Koptseva and Vasily Tarasenko have the opportunity to realize their creative vision in the first capital, Moscow.

Today, many significant places in our city are getting a new look thanks to architectural competitions. On the initiative of the Chief Architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov, recently there have been over twenty competitions for objects of all sizes — from urban development projects and buildings in key locations around the city, to the facades and even individual elements of buildings. Information about current events is constantly being updated on the Archcouncil site.