Brooklyn-based firm MODU with Eric Forman Studio is the winner of the 2020 Times Square Valentine Heart Design competition, hosted annually by Times Square Arts. Heart Squared is a steel-frame sculpture designed to suggest the form of an anatomical heart.
Set in the heart are 125 mirrors each revealing fragments of Times Square like individual pixels. Hardly random, each mirror is positioned according to a design generated with custom software. While seemingly “kaleidoscopic” in effect, from a single vantage point the mirrored heart will coalesce into a cohesive reflection of the urban world around it.
“Heart Squared represents the collective heart of the city and as such, is an engaging civic statement about celebrating our differences and bringing people together in a fundamentally inclusive way,” said MODU in a press release. Eric Forman Studio added that the firms are “using the magic of mirrors and light to remix the urban spectacle into something unexpected.”
This is the 12th iteration of the Valentine Heart Design competition and this year it is organized in partnership with the Cooper Hewitt. Previous winners have included Reddymade, Aranda\Lasch with Marcelo Coelho, and Bjarke Ingels Group. Heart Squared will be officially unveiled on January 30th and remain on view for the duration of February.
