Friday, May 10 – Wenesday, May 22
Times Square NYC
Design Pavilion, Pedestrian Plazas
(between Broadway and 7th Avenue, from West 45th to West 46th Street)

Hurrah! is a unique interactive project conceived for this year’s Design Pavilion in Times Square during NYCxDesign, where it will be enjoyed by over 5 million local residents and international visitors.

The project was created to mark this year’s 100th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Poland and the United States. Its purpose is to show the relationship between these two countries on the human and artistic level and to inspire acts of collaborative creation by emphasizing Polish-American friendship.

To celebrate this special occasion, a team of Industrial Design students and faculty from Pratt Institute and the Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts, in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, D.C., created an art object that values and embodies ideas of friendship and joy.

Hurrah! is a musical instrument designed for public space that passersby can play and interact with. The installation takes the form of a large-scale xylophone composed of vertical tubes.

Alluding to both the Polish forest and New York skyscrapers, the vertical tubes allow the participant to feel enclosed within a space yet still connected to the wider landscape. The structure encourages the player to enact circular movements reminiscent of traditional Polish dance circles, creating a literal and metaphorical link between participants. When tapped consecutively with a drumstick, the instrument plays the Polish birthday and anniversary song “Sto Lat.”

The tune, well known to every Pole and even some Americans, recalls universal themes of fun and the joy of togetherness. Come play your “Sto lat” to Polish-American Friendship!