Spanish artist Jaume Plensa is best known for his sculptures created for public places, and one of his newest pieces is within the lobby of 30 Hudson Yards—Voices (2018). A collection of metallic orbs suspended from the ceiling that invites viewers to cast their heads skywards, each of the 11 spheres is constructed from metal, hangs over 10 meters in the air, and weighs between 400 to 5,000 pounds. The ambitious piece took more than a year to fabricate, as each sphere is uniquely composed of letters from a different language's alphabet, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hindi, and Latin—"the voices of many, talking at the same time," as Plensa puts it. Inspired by the theme of our shared humanity, Plensa hopes that the workers and visitors entering the lobby of 30 Hudson Yards will be inspired to look up, as most New Yorkers spend significant time looking down. The piece can potentially create new bridges between cultures, communities and individuals who share the same space.
