Stickbulb has introduced a suspended light sculpture inspired by and made from the ruins of a storied Chicago factory. Designed in collaboration with RUX, the founding creative team behind Stickbulb, Fire and Ice hangs in the balance between destruction and creation, historic and contemporary, visceral and cerebral. From some angles, the form appears to collapse under its own weight, while from others it reveals its strength and geometric resolve. This light sculpture follows the success of its 2017 Ambassador collection.
Made possible through the use of hardware connectors, the wooden LED beams seemingly splinter in the air, floating above fragments of the former Pullman Couch Factory alongside a large-scale limited edition art print of the building in its last moments. When the 100-year-old Pullman Couch Co. building caught fire on Jan. 22, 2013, one third of the Chicago fire department turned out to battle the flames in sub-zero temperatures. As the firefighters doused the structure in water, it froze into a palace of ice around the building’s smoldering core. The clash of elemental opposites created an event of visual and poetic power, earning what was left of the building the name Fire and Ice.
Fire and Ice is part of Stickbulb’s ongoing mission to elevate material provenance to the same stature as form and function in the realm of design manufacturing. Long Leaf, or Heart Pine as it is commonly known, once covered about 90 million acres of southeastern U.S. and was logged to near extinction in order to feed a building boom in many cities including New York and Chicago. As heartwood takes a minimum of 200 to 400 years to mature, practically the only American heartwood to be found today is through salvage from structures, such as the Pullman Couch Factory. With the creation of Fire and Ice, Stickbulb celebrates the re-use of natural materials while preserving the beauty of this ancient wood.