NIKE—Winged Goddess of Victory

Few projects or clients could find a more appropriate home for a contemporary interpretation of the iconic ancient Greek sculpture known as the Winged Goddess of Victory or Nike of Samothrace, currently located at the Louvre Museum in Paris. A premier sports equipment and marketing organization headquartered in the Pacific Northwest sought to realize a carved, hard-stone bas-relief interpretation of this eponymous sculpture for their new world headquarters.

The sculpture, 15 feet tall and 18 feet wide, is carved from locally-sourced basalt and fitted into Italian black granite textured wall tiles. This hard-stone sculpture was created by a single artisan stone carver, using six robotic machines to rough in the individual modules. Each part was then hand finished and fitted before being handed off to the installation team.

The sculpture is magnificent in size and massively heavy, a scale necessitating minimization of total mass and maximization of relief detail. The detail is captured in a maximum 2.5 inches of depth in a stone approximately 3 inches thick. LED lighting above the sculpture emphasizes the carving’s rich detail.

Great risks were taken by both client and artisan to execute this piece, requiring on-demand resolution of many unpredictable issues during production, especially given the incredibly short schedule for delivery. The final result exceeded all expectations, to the great relief of all.

Design Team

Peter Attila Andrusko (artisan stone carver)

Project Area

300 sq ft

Project Budget

$400,000

Consultants

Hoffman Construction Company

Fabricators

Peter Attila Andrusko (artisan stone carver)