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Heart Squared / New York
Times Square Arts and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
Public Art
2020 / 250 sq. ft.


Heart Squared was the winning entry in the 2020 Times Square Heart Design Competition, organized by Times Square Arts and curated by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Designed to celebrate love and diversity, Heart Squared evokes an abstracted anatomical heart formed by an open steel lattice. A cloud of air, steel, and mirrors, it draws visitors to walk around it and experience an “infinite grid” in its kaleidoscopic reflections. Suspended within this lattice, and angled in various directions, one hundred twenty five mirrors reflect the surroundings of Times Square — the people, buildings, billboards and even the sky above.


Collaboration: MODU and Eric Forman Studio
Award: Winner, 2020 Times Square Heart competition




A heart shape is revealed when viewers find a “sweet spot” from which a large pixelated heart appears, surrounded by a field of reflected sky. In one of the world’s busiest public spaces, day or night, it is possible to connect to nature. Heart Squared is always changing with its surroundings as it reflects anyone who engages with it, videos from the billboards, and the weather in the skies above.
Heart Squared prompts visitors to reconsider the verticality of Times Square, focusing on its horizontal character as the public floor of the city. The installation achieves something remarkable—it is a quiet artwork amid a space of urban spectacle. The public’s experience 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.


Project Team: Rachely Rotem, Phu Hoang, Jiri Vala, Ilse De Sutter, Tom Sterling, Brenda Lim
Credits: Silman (Structural),  New Project (Fabricator), Frank Oudeman/OTTO (Photography), Times Square Arts (Video)
Project Sponsors: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, The Ripple Foundation, Silman, and New Project.