GM Installed Colorful LED Lighting Around Tops of Renaissance Center Towers

When General Motors first installed bands of colorful LED lighting around the tops of its Renaissance Center towers this year, some people liked it and some thought it looked a little too Las Vegas-y. Whatever your opinion, get ready for more. General Motors is working with the City of Detroit to allow it to put more such LED bands of lighting on its RenCen world headquarters. The company would like to install vertical bands of lighting on the exterior elevator towers of the RenCen. And it wants the city's permission to relax its signage code so that GM could display a more varied menu of messages on the 25-foot sign high atop the RenCen's central tower. Mike Taylor, the construction manager for Hines, the real estate firm that manages the RenCen for GM, said the lighting is meant to add "a little bit more life" to the RenCen's monotone façade, but keep it "very subtle, very professional." GM emphasizes that it doesn't want it headquarters to look like a casino, he said, adding, "I've heard more positive stuff than negative." At the very least, the RenCen lighting has got people talking yet again about Detroit's most famous building, often the subject of controversy over its 34-year history. Detroit has enjoyed a mostly successful history of lighting its major skyscrapers. The Penobscot, the Fisher Building, and others have been lit with greater or lesser artistry for many years. Postcard images of downtown from the 1920s show a city vibrant with lighting. What seems different about the recently installed LED lighting atop the Renaissance Center is its intensity. LED (light-emitting diode) lighting can be visible for miles; when used as on the RenCen, it also tends to have a somewhat more artificial look than more traditional lighting techniques used on other buildings. So plans by GM to add even more of the LED lighting may spark debate over the design and imagery of Detroit's tallest and most famous building. Not far behind, Quicken Loans founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert is hoping to use modern lighting and signage to renew his collection of older buildings that he recently purchased downtown. There is also GM's logo atop the highest central tower in 25-by-25-foot LED signs, electronic billboards that occasionally shows something like the Tigers logo, too. GM hopes to get the city's OK to show a broader range of messages on this highest sign, including more public service messages, such as ones promoting breast cancer awareness. Currently, the city code restricts signage mostly to messages related to the business in the building. Ron Harwood, a lighting designer and founder of Farmington Hills-based Illuminating Concepts, said the RenCen lights stand out in part because nothing else around the RenCen is illuminated in a similar way. Harwood dismisses critics of such lighting. He points out that most cities we consider lively all use lots of lighting in creative ways, from New York's Times Square to Tokyo. "Darkness is the opposite of entertainment," he said. "Good times, entertainment and security all depend on illumination." If nothing else, the new LED lighting reminds us that the Renaissance Center remains a work in progress nearly 40 years after it opened. Source: www.freep.com