THE LIFE ELECTRIC

The design of this sculpture, dedicated to the physicist and son of Como, Alessandro Volta, was a gift to the city of Como by the Libeskinds. Located at the end of the Diga Foranea pier at the center of Como’s harbor, it stands over 45 feet in height and is made of calendared steel coated with 316 thin, reflective steel panels. The sculpture’s curvatures are intended to pay homage to Volta’s discovery of the electric battery, with its positive and negative charges flowing through it.

The two steel sinusoidal waves reciprocate their curvatures, and the poles bend away from the perpendicular, creating seemingly infinite reflections of the city, mountains, and the Lake of Como itself. The structure is illuminated at night by an underwater LED lighting system that plays off the reflective steel much as the sun does during the day.