LAX Gateway Enhancement Project

The Kinetic Light Installation (untitled), 2000, by artist Paul Tzanetopoulos, is the public art component of the LAX Gateway Beautification Project.  Completed for the Los Angeles International Airport for Los Angeles World Airports on August 8, 2000, the work is the largest permanent public art lighting installation in the world.  The Kinetic Light Installation, visible at night, is housed within a complex of 26 giant, translucent glass pylons.

Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) worked with the City of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department to commission Tzanetopoulos primarily to create a large-scale public art work utilizing light and movement (the Kinetic Light Installation); and secondarily, to work within the LAX Gateway design team to create an artist’s interface that would allow the creative lighting programming within the pylons, and ensure that the lighting technology would be implemented and consistent with the goal of the public art element.

Thematically, the pylons on Century Boulevard are illuminated so as to create a welcoming motion toward the airport.  The pylons in the circular central exchange (at Century and Sepulveda Boulevards) receive their motivation and color from this movement.