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Greg Lynn Creates Swarovski Crystal Palace Installation for Design Miami

The 861-square-foot structure will be located at the entrance to Designers' Lounge and feature more than 1,500,000 crystals and upwards of 375,000 square feet of carbon and aramid fibers assembled by computer-guided robots.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 11/22/2009 12:00:00 AM

Following in the esteemed steps of Zaha Hadid, Ross Lovegrove, Tom Dixon, and Ron Arad, American architect Greg Lynn has designed the Swarovski Crystal Palace installation for this year’s Design Miami fair, running from December 1 to 5.

A graduate of Miami University in his home state of Ohio, Lynn has turned his eyes toward the Florida metropolis in creating one of his signature biomorphic structures for the annual expo, created as the design counterpart to the nearby Art Basel Miami Beach, held this year from December 3-6.

The installation—located at the entrance to the fair’s Designers’ Lounge—will take the form of a 7-foot high, 861-square-foot space, creating walls and a ceiling made from panels featuring 1,500,000 Swarovski crystals and 383,858 feet of carbon and aramid fibers compressed between Mylar.

Less than a half-inch thick, the panels are nonetheless formidably strong. “The sails are made to cope with massive loads from the wind,” says Lynn. “It’s like hanging 3 SUVs off a paper thin sheet.”

The suspended panels do resemble overlapping and intersecting sails and the curved and billowing shapes where in fact assembled by computer-guided robots at the North Sails One Design factory. They were constructed in such a way that despite having a surface area of over 525-square-feet, the panels can be easily folded and packed into the trunk of a standard car. The entire installation, including the aquamarine, pink, red, beach, and blue crystals, weighs less than 775 pounds.

"When Swarovski contacted me, I immediately thought of the translucent laminate sails as way of getting the crystals suspended in the air—not as an objects but as a sheet or surface through which light could pass and be reflected," adds Lynn.

Bohemian inventor Daniel Swarovski found his eponymously named company in 1895. Since then, Swarovski has grown to be the world's leading producer of precision-cut crystal for fashion, jewellery, lighting, architecture, and interiors.

Images courtesy of Swarovski.