Under the Stars at Time Warner Center

New York, NY

New York City has long been the home of lavish, imaginative holiday displays, and 2005 saw the creation of a new spectacle that earned its place among the city’s best.

Entitled Under the Stars, the installation comprised twelve 14-foot stars that were suspended from the Time Warner Center’s towering 75-foot atrium. The stars, consisting of aluminum frames with acrylic panels, were each illuminated by 20 Color Kinetics® ColorBlast® 12 systems – allowing them to perform choreographed color changes in accordance with original music adapted from The Nutcracker Suite. Several three-minute light shows were programmed to run every fifteen minutes between 4:00 – 10:00 pm. The individually controllable ColorBlast 12 systems allowed for multiple color changes within a single star, or synchronized effects across all of the stars.The installation ran from mid-November through early January, and was designed to be easily implemented for future holiday seasons.

Under the Stars was designed and fabricated by Holiday Image, Inc. with lighting by Ted Mather Lighting Design. According to Holiday Image President & CEO Matthew Schwam, “The Color Kinetics units were an integral part of the success of the lighting design.”

Outside the Time Warner Center, the famed Prow Sculpture, also lit by Color Kinetics’ intelligent LED lighting systems, was re-programmed to replicate the color scheme of Under the Stars. Passersby looking in from Columbus Circle would therefore see a visual connection between the two. Ted Mather led the lighting design of the Prow as well, incorporating more than 760 feet of Color Kinetics iColor Cove®.  

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Photo Credit: Richard Cadan Photography	Photo Credit: Richard Cadan Photography