Steel Stacks Campus

The Steel Stacks Campus in Bethlehem, PA is the former Bethlehem Steel Plant turned dynamic arts and cultural campus. For the residents of the local community, the campus also plays an important role by providing programs and services that benefit those members of the community who are underserved. The redevelopment focuses on the 10-acre central core that includes multiple performance venues, plazas and parks - along with the sculpturally angular Levitt Pavilion, an open-air stage graced by the spectacular backdrop of Bethlehem’s iconic blast furnaces, and the Hoover Mason Trestle, which was an elevated railway for carrying raw materials.

Avoiding frontal lighting that would have flattened the structure and created light spill, the furnaces were instead lit from within and from the side and from behind. This underscores their voluminous presence and provides a rhythm to their layout, providing a sense of the action that took place within and through them. This placement of the lighting also highlights the materiality of the facilities and their production: “at night, we should feel the burn and see the roughness of material. We don’t want the beautification of Disneyland, or for it to be melancholic”, explains Principal Hervé Descottes.