US AIRFORCE MEMORIAL
Located on a hill above the Pentagon, the United States Air Force Memorial is one of Washington's most important monuments. The lighting forms an essential part of the nightly staging of each of these monuments. The three elegant steel struts of the Air Force Memorial embody the precision and lightness of flight.
Recessed floor luminaires were fitted with metal hoods to reduce the aperture angle, shield the luminaires and thus ensure uniform and glare-free illumination of the vertical surfaces. The finely polished granite walls serve as a backdrop for the polished lettering panels. The materials and lighting are coordinated in such a way as to avoid the disruptive light reflections along the wall surface that usually occur when using conventional uplights and polished floor-to-ceiling granite panels. Instead of the usual bronze, stainless steel was used for the protective hoods, in keeping with the material of the struts and the architectural congruence of the monument. The casting process played an important role. Each piece was individually cast in a precision mold and then polished by hand. As the date of the inauguration ceremony was set well in advance, the individual work steps leading up to the realization of the monument were planned years in advance.
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP
88 Pine Street
New York, NY 10005 USA
www.pcf-p.com