For more than a century, the city of South Bend, Indiana has done its part to create an aesthetic point of interest where Jefferson Boulevard crosses the St. Joseph River. The Jefferson Boulevard Bridge, a 490-foot span first built in 1905, features unique architectural details. The city then unveiled a kinetic artwork by abstract expressionist sculptor Mark di Suvero in 1980. And in May 2015, when South Bend was celebrating its 150th birthday, the city celebrated with fireworks and a torch relay that officially “lit” its latest riverfront enhancement: an architectural light art installation designed by LD Rob Shakespeare that was billed as the world’s first interactive display over a body of water.
The project, completed for a reported $750,000 and overseen by Downtown South Bend executive director Aaron Perry, serves as a dramatic and enduring transformation of the South Bend Cascades riverfront area, where water flows past di Suvero’s mid-river large-format artwork honoring the Potawatomi tribe, “Keepers of the Fire,” and spills over and down an angled 250-foot-wide river embankment.
Dubbed South Bend River Lights, the project has five components: “Light Trio” (three lit towers on one side of the river), “Light Forest” (five lit towers on the other), the “Crescent” (an arc-shaped structure lined with fixtures that set the rushing waters aglow) and more fixtures that illuminate the di Suvero sculpture and the arches of the Jefferson Boulevard Bridge (which got a facelift in 2004, just before it turned 100).
Although the city of South Bend timed the inauguration of its river lighting project for May 22, 2015, the exact sesquicentennial of the city’s founding date, the lighting installation was conceived as a physical, lasting component of the three-day SB150 celebratory weekend.
Part of the city’s 2025 City Plan for Smart Growth, the project lets visitors watch as a splash of color on one set of towers spills across the river embankment and changes the color of the spires on the other side. Visitors to Seitz Park, Colfax Bridge, Island Park and Pier Park can watch the show nightly, year-round. Along with interactive sensors to detect motion and respond when visitors wave their hands, there are long-range plans to make the lighting sustainable with river turbines helping to power the energy-efficient LED fixtures.
Structural Support
James Thomas Engineering, which first worked with LD Rob Shakespeare on “Light Totem,” his large-format light sculpture for the University of Indiana, played a crucial role for ensuring that the South Bend River Lights project would, like the di Suvero sculpture and bridge, withstand the test of time
“Light Trio,” set up on the west side of the river, consists of three brushed aluminum 30-inch-square truss towers near a convention center and art museum designed by architect Philip Johnson and a small manmade island; a popular site for many weddings ceremonies. The top of each tower has a slight curve to it, “as though they are bowing down, paying homage” to di Suvero’s “Keeper of the Fire” sculpture, notes Shakespeare.
Across the river, to the east, is Seitz Park. The area, which is still under development, has a gazebo, children’s playground and band shell for concerts. Here, Shakespeare placed “Light Forest,” with five 24-inch square towers of varying autumnal green colors and heights. All have a green powder coated pedestal evoking a tree trunk, cradling each tower at their base.
All eight towers are illuminated internally every five feet by Lumenpulse LBL’s RGB up- and down-lights. LBX and LBG Lumenbeams sit inside the top of each tower. These spots are aimed at the di Suvero sculpture, adding illumination without intruding on the existing landscape.
The height of the towers played an important role in that any light overshooting the sculpture buries in the earth bank beyond it. “I am very happy with how much dark sky we have been able to maintain on this project,” notes Shakespeare.
Visitors waving their hands towards or away from the structures activate sensors in each tower. The Lumenpulse internal fixtures then “chase” color to the top of the tower. This interaction also triggers “Crescent,” which sequences a “ball of colored light” across the whitewater of the river via the 14 Color Kinetics RGB Color Reaches.
With a bit of coordination and cooperation, by having a person at each tower, the reward is a rainbow color effect upon the bridge combined with a sweep of colors throughout the installation for a brief time, whereupon the pre-programmed looks begin their cycle again. “It’s sort of emblematic of the idea of bridging both parts of the community,” says Shakespeare.
Downstream, the span of the Cascades is illuminated every five degrees by the 14 Color Kinetics Color Reaches mounted on the horizontal 45-foot Crescent aluminum sculpture. This piece designed by Shakespeare includes a curving arc of truss that is mounted atop three steel “candy cane” shaped legs.
“I developed most of the Crescent shape myself and then sent my renders to Angel Hicks, my CAD person and contact during the whole process for the structure design at Thomas,” said Shakespeare. “She is bright, straightforward and knows her stuff; qualities that clearly come through in her warm email personality. She also assisted with the design work on the candy cane legs for the Crescent, which I was equally impressed with, as the company does not fabricate steel in house.”
“Tim Moran, the guy with the bigger picture at James Thomas,” Shakespeare adds, “was open, honest and generous with his time and remained encouraging through tight production timelines. When I threw them curves, they worked with them.”
Once the point was reached where the piece was aesthetically able to deliver light the way Shakespeare wanted and Thomas Engineering deemed it structurally sound, the drawings were passed on to Clark Reder.
Though JTE is a certified structural engineering company, law mandates an external review before final installation. Clark Reder Engineering is a full service consulting engineering firm serving the entertainment industry. Past projects include structural analysis on the Electric Zoo Festival in New York and the Grateful Dead’s big “Fare Thee Well” shows in Santa Clara and Chicago in 2015. “JTE then generously found a vendor to fabricate the steel supports,” says Shakespeare, “which was enormously helpful, as we were under a tight timeline.”
The Canvas and Control
The Jefferson Bridge itself serves as a canvas to further light the St. Joseph River it spans. Martin Exterior RGBW 400 wash fixtures attached under the bridge uplight the concrete arches, while the Martin 400 spot series fixtures aimed at the water reflect the ever changing movement of the waves to the underside of the bridge. Shakespeare had Martin customize the spots with an extra blue LED (RGBB) as an extra kick to counterbalance the rules of Fresnel, which predict the behavior of light when moving between media of differing refractive indices.
Mike Burbaker from AC+D in Indianapolis designed and implemented the control system, and Sean Smallman programmed the three Pharos LPC controllers, which control the lighting system. Smallman was an MFA graduate student of the Indiana University Lighting Design Program, which Shakespeare taught. “Sean is a talented young man who programs frequently for me,” says Shakespeare. “It is a real treat to work with him as we have developed a shorthand in communication. Consequently what could have taken a month, we accomplished in a week.”
Smallman, who lives in Arizona, can access the Pharos remotely, if needed. Local access is possible through a programmed button on the phone of Downtown South Bend’s Aaron Perry. With this in hand, Perry can instantly access multiple pre-programmed looks anytime he wants according to seasonal, holiday or special events, further enhancing the primary goal of River Lights: to extend the beauty of the location into the night as an evening destination, adding yet another layer to the attractiveness of downtown South Bend.
“I sing praises for the client interaction of JTE. They are a great fabricator company. A company that puts a good technical person who knows how it all works shows excellent integrity, rather than some smooth talker with guessing knowledge,” says Shakespeare. “At the opening, it was a rather joyous occasion to see the whole team on hand, and thank them; many whom I had never met over the course of the project.”
The JTE client for this project was Mid-America Sound out of Greenfield, IN.
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