By the end of the year a lighting project that pays homage to Pittsburgh's geography as well as to jazz great Billy Strayhorn is expected to be installed in the lobby of the former Westinghouse headquarters, Downtown.

"Rivers of Glass: Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" by Beacon, N.Y., glass artists Jill Reynolds and Daniel Spitzer, has won the national competition for the $75,000 lighting project at 11 Stanwix St.

The piece that also celebrates the city's rich history in glassmaking will include 1,500 blown glass elements.

The shape of the suspended work is derived from that of Pittsburgh's three rivers, and from a segment of Strayhorn's arrangement of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" reworked into a wave by a computer.

The piece will be oriented in the direction of and parallel to the riverfront. Each element will be comprised of blown glass forms based on high-speed photographs of water droplets that will be made in several shades and intensities of blue. The appearance of the work will change from four-foot thick undulating wave formation to long blue line to a school of aqueous forms dependent upon viewpoint.

The competition, "Sculpting Light on Stanwix," is sponsored by RexxHall Realty, LLC, in partnership with EDGE Studio and the Pittsburgh Glass Center in Lawrenceville, where the artists will make the components of the installation in the fall. Completion is projected by year's end.

The winning proposal was among four finalists selected from 28 submissions. The finalists were reviewed March 30 by a jury that included city public art manager Morton Brown, adjunct Carnegie Museum of Art curator Sarah Nichols, Metropolis magazine editorial director Paul Makovsky and principals from the sponsoring organizations.

Both artists have exhibited at the Glass Center, where Reynolds has also been artist-in-residence.