NEWS
Lighting the Gesù competition, Montreal: three designers from Montreal are awarded the first prize
The competition initiated by the Partnership of the Quartier des spectacles and Gesù et Design Montréal from the City of Montreal, received 37 entries from all horizons (architects, designers, students etc) and from three continents.
The aim of the competition was to stimulate ideas for a lighting design for the façade of the Gésu which highlights the emblematic building’s characteristics of art, humanity and spirituality at the same time as complementing the Lighting Plan of the Quartier des spectacles.
On the 18th March the jury finally revealed the winners of the first prize and $10 000 as three designers from Montreal: Mathieu Koch, David-Alexandre Côté and Steve Blanchette with their sensitive proposal, Rencontre sur les marches de l’église (photo). The design caught the eye of the jury thanks to its use of soft and fragile lighting similar to that of a candle.
The second prize of $5 000 was won by Martin Labrecque and Jean Laurin, lighting designers from Montreal, with their entry Deux mondes, un lieu and the third prize of $3 000 was awarded to New York architects James Long and Athena N Anders for their Light Shadow Dream entry.
In order to involve the public in the project, they were invited along from the 20th January to judge the entries for themselves. Almost 1000 public votes were counted and the project attracted 13 000 visitors. In general, the public votes echoed those of the jury and the public prize of $2 000 was awarded to Jonathan Barro et Stéphane Caissy from Montreal.
‘Thanks to the quality of the competition entries, the recommendations of a professional jury and the public vote, we now dispose of enough key elements to define which genre of illumination has the potential to highlight the identity of the Gesù in the heart of the Quartier des spectacles’, said M. Charles Lapointe, president of the Partnership of the Quartier des spectacles.
The Lighting exposition will be displayed on the Gesù from the 28th March.
For more information visit www.gesu.net.