The Luminarium

A few days ago I went to The Luminarium in Liverpool ONE after seeing an ad on L1’s facebook page. The Luminarium is (still is today, sorry if you missed it) in Chavasse Park. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ eighth album, there will be live performances. We went to see it before the live performances and we enjoyed it a lot. You might have seen a picture on Instagram.

The Luminarium is an immersive and interactive sculpture created by Architects of Air and designed by Alan Parkinson. Amazingly it has a history that spans over 25 years and more than 600 exhibitions. Over 3 million visitors enjoyed the sculpture, in 43 countries, across 5 continents.

Architects of Air is based in Nottingham and evolved from a community project. In 1990 the first sculpture was built, it was called Eggopolis and was a performance space, in collaboration with a centre for people with disabilities and a theatre company. They attended a festival in Edinburgh and the public loved the experience. This lead to them building a new luminarium almost every year. The luminariums went on tour, as I mentioned earlier, going to over 40 countries. That is amazing.
Architect of Air are creating the materials along with a plastics manufacturer, the design was made on a drawing board, now is done on computer. The luminariums are built by hand in Notthingham. At the end of their life, the luminariums are recycled.

We were told we can have a sit in the domes, lay down and relax. We both did that a few times, in different rooms.

Alan Parkinson, the designer, discovered by accident the world of inflatables in 1982. As a part-time worker, he saw how bouncy airbeds were built and what structural issues they had.

The inspiration for the luminariums can come from natural, geometric or architectural structures, like Gothic cathedrals, Islamic architecture or the work of Gaudi, Frei Otto, Buckminster Fuller.

His son is doing development for the new designs of Luminarium.

The Luminarium had 3 dodecadomes, with three different colours: red, blue and green. There is also the tree and the central dome.

Going from a room to anther on these corridors which have these beautiful shapes and different colours was beautiful.

The tree looks amazing. I liked it a lot.

All the rooms had mini-domes so people can stay there and relax.

I think it looks and feels amazing. I will visit one of their following structures if I have the chance.

The blue dodecadome, my favourite colour.

The central dome had these lovely “stars” and it looked like a cathedral. It looks really incredible.

It was funny to see people relaxing on the fabric.

I think the sculpture looks very interesting from the outside too.