Nikolas Weinstein

Installed in 2016, the sculpture is the largest and most complex to date with eight panels spanning the length of the building’s lobby space, with the largest panel exceeding the size of an 18-wheeler.   At 164 feet long, 39 feet wide, and 43 feet tall, it was the largest installation Weinstein completed.  The installation required an engineering team to ensure the integrity of the sculpture as the area is prone to earthquakes.  In addition to his design team of 10, Weinstein partnered with Arup, the structural engineering firm involved in building the Sydney Opera House.

Completed in 2013, the sculpture in the lobby of the Mariott Hong Kong Sha Tim is made of 58,000 glass tubes and almost six miles of steel cable, the artwork weaves between the building’s columns, and seems to accompany guests as they ascend the stairs to the second floor. The sculpture is 8.8 feet wide, 53.6 feet long, and 8.4 feet high and is made of nearly 60,000 individual glass tubes.  The total length of the sculpture laid end-to-end is over 11 kilometers.

Commissioned in 1996 by architect Frank O. Gehry, the project was Weinstein’s entry into the commercial market, and his first foray into large-scale glass installations.  Weinstein designed and constructed a chandelier for the atrium of the DG Bank building in Berlin.  The installation consists of 30 “clouds” of glass floating a few meters above the ground.   With a total weight of 2.5 tons, an area of more than 2,000 square feet, taking and four years to complete,  the installation was one of the largest all-glass sculptures in the world.

Weinstein’s studio opened in 1991.  Since his first large commission, the DZ Bank building at Pariser Platz, Weinstein has become known for his innovations in glass art which he uses to build his large-scale, sculptural glass installations.  Weinstein uses a unique four-meter long kiln which he designed himself to fuse and shape glass tubes in one pass.  The kiln features a bed covered with discs on rods that can be raised or lowered to shape softened glass.  The design was inspired by “pin screens”, the toys that record impressions of a face or hand in a layer of movable pins.

Weinstein received his BA in comparative literature from Brown University in 1990. He also studied at Université de Nantes & École des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, France  Before glass blowing, Weinstein worked briefly in a stained glass shop in Brooklyn, New York.  Later, Weinstein took lessons at a glassblowing shop in Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood and became interested in the “smoke and fire” of the trade. Upon returning to Brown, he used extra time in his last semester to enroll in a glassblowing course at  Rhode Island School of Design, after which he states he “was hooked.”

Nikolas Weinstein (born 1968) is a San Francisco-based American glass artist known for his large-scale architectural sculptures.  Weinstein’s primary medium is Borosilicate Glass tube which he shapes using a modern kiln casting technique in custom kilns —some of which include a computer-operated pin bed. Weinstein's sculptures mimic flowing fabric or origami. Several of Weinstein’s sculptures hang in public buildings in Asia.

Nikolas Weinstein was born in 1968 in New York City to parents who both had artistic careers.  His father, Richard S. Weinstein, worked in urban planning for New York City before moving to Los Angeles to become dean of the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.  His mother was a sculptor.