{"id":8777,"date":"2019-10-27T22:52:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T22:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=8777"},"modified":"2023-07-11T05:34:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T05:34:13","slug":"the-triforium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/misc\/the-triforium\/","title":{"rendered":"The Triforium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrericsir\/48955302461\/in\/dateposted\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48955302461_1a067b83d5_z.jpg\" alt=\"Triforium\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Easily the strangest thing in downtown LA is the Triforium, a concrete sculpture covered in colorful glass prisms in a public plaza, surrounded by government buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The obvious question &#8212; what is this thing? &#8212; doesn&#8217;t have a simple answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artist Joseph Young built the Triforium for the plaza.  Originally the plan was for it to have a computer controlled system of lights to illuminate the prisms, to rhythmically illuminate it in sync with a carillon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Oh, and it was supposed to be topped with a laser that projected straight up into space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There was one problem: it was 1975, and the technology was too primitive to realize this vision successfully. Also, the laser was never installed as it was already over budget. LA Weekly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laweekly.com\/look-inside-the-depths-of-dtlas-weirdest-sculpture\/\">has more details on its history.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The public apparently didn&#8217;t care for the Triforium much after a while, the sound was disabled, and as attention to LA&#8217;s urban core shifted outward, the Triforium was not only ignored, but the reflection pool under it was drained and replaced with plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now that downtown LA has become a much more vibrant place again, with it is renewed interest in the sculpture. Twice over the past few decades there have been restoration efforts, adding a new sound system, a modern computer, and LED lights to illuminate the prisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/mrericsir\/48970007848\/in\/dateposted\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/48970007848_63d3900ccf.jpg\" alt=\"Triforium at night\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunately it&#8217;s still not always on, even at night. I took the photo on Saturday well after sundown at around 8 PM and it wasn&#8217;t doing anything. I suspect it&#8217;s only activated for special events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fortunately Curbed LA has <a href=\"https:\/\/la.curbed.com\/2018\/10\/23\/18010338\/downtown-los-angeles-triforium-light-up-friday\">several short videos of the Triforium back in action<\/a>. I just wish I had the chance to see it working in person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Easily the strangest thing in downtown LA is the Triforium, a concrete sculpture covered in colorful glass prisms in a public plaza, surrounded by government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"The Triforium - MrEricSir.com","description":"Easily the strangest thing in downtown LA is the Triforium, a concrete sculpture covered in colorful glass prisms in a public plaza, surrounded by government bu"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1250,38,1246,222,1427],"class_list":["post-8777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","tag-los-angeles","tag-photos","tag-public-art","tag-travel","tag-triforium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9712,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions\/9712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}