Featured Project: Inside ‘World’s Largest Permanent Projection System’

San Francisco-based Obscura Digital, known internationally for its large-scale architectural projection mapping on iconic buildings around the world-including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Sydney Opera House in Australia-has partnered with property management company Vornado Realty Trust and architecture firm Valerio Dewalt Train Associates Inc. to design and implement a permanent projection system that it says will be the world’s largest.

The installation highlights Chicago’s Merchandise Mart-popularly known as theMART-an art deco-style building completed in 1934 that, when it opened, was the largest building in the world.

Sitting alongside the Chicago River, theMART today is a multi-use facility featuring office space, retail, and meeting rooms.

To illuminate the building with large-scale visual artistry, Obscura is using 34 Christie-made, Boxer 4K30 projectors that fire more than one million lumens of light onto the 2 ½-acre-or nearly 92,000 square feet-façade of the building..

The company says that for the display, it created a software-driven platform that allows theMART team to curate an ongoing exhibition of imagery from celebrated artists, keeping the illuminations fresh, timely and engaging. Notably, Obscura adds, the curation will focus exclusively on art, and will include no branding, logos or advertising.

The display, which officially opened in September, features two-hour projection shows five nights a week, 10 months a year.