The bridge between San Francisco and Oakland has become the world's largest light sculpture.

The bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland, or simply Bay Bridge is the brother of the much more famous Golden Gate Bridge, the most recognizable symbol of San Francisco. At the same time, Bay Bridge is much longer and it drives two and a half times more cars. On the night of March 5/6, a light installation of 25,000 white LEDs began to work on the western span of the bridge. Each LED is controlled individually, which allows you to create any imaginable patterns.



The author of the project, Leo Villareal , began his career as a programmer at one of the technology companies Palo Alto. He created his first light sculpture in 1997. He himself writes software to manage his installations.

He collected money for the creation of such a large-scale structure literally with the world on a string - most of the eight million budget of the Bay Lights project is donations. 25 thousand LEDs are located on the vertical cables of the bridge. For their fastening, besides the usual cable ties, special clips, printed on a 3D printer, were used. The length of the western span of the bridge is almost three kilometers.
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It is expected that in two years of the planned work of the project, 50 million people will see the digital sculpture, and by increasing the tourist attractiveness of San Francisco, local companies will earn $ 97 million more.