Written by Stavros Didakis, Professor, NYU Shanghai.
Lighting is an important part of the functional and aesthetic part of buildings. By using light (illumination, color, or shadows) as an artistic medium, a wide range of compositions can be created. Lighting is a fundamental medium for architectural and interior design, as it is able to communicate content with its inhabitants, and, in addition, it strongly defines how the space can be utilized. The profound effects of lighting within architectural spaces are non-arguable, as everyone can instantly sense the conveyed mood. As light plays a significant role in the psychological state of inhabitants – such as provoking mood and cognition levels (Knez, 1995), (Baron et al. 1992), influence performance through the intervening variable of positive affect (Baron et al., 1992), trigger serotonin levels in the body, changing a person’s mood and social behaviour (aan het Rot et al., 2008), and assist interpersonal communication, stimulate more general communication, or encourage intimacy (Gifford 1988: 177) – it is a considerable parameter to the development of media extensions of an interior space and to the emotional states that it can affect.
The Importance of Architectural Lighting - TCP Lighting
For over half a century, the American artist James Turrell has worked directly with light and space to create artworks that engage viewers with the limits and wonder of human perception. Turrell has innovated photographic techniques that allow light to have a physical presence. Using holography to make the light itself the subject rather than the medium, Turrell creates colored light installations that appear to possess mass and take up space as planes, cubes, pyramids, and tunnels. Turrell’s series “Skyspace,” (begun in the 1970s), which he has constructed around the world, are enclosed spaces open to the sky through an aperture in the roof that enable viewers to observe changes in light from minute to minute and season to season, what has been described as a religious experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVoMJHSNyI0&t=4s
Artist Olafur Eliasson is another renowned artist that uses often light and architecture to create provocative works. One of his most known artworks is the Weather Project for the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London, which is a site-specific installation that employed a semi-circular screen, a ceiling of mirrors, and artificial mist to create the illusion of a sun. Aluminium frames lined with mirror foil were suspended from the ceiling to create a giant mirror that visually doubled the volume of the hall – along with the semi-circular screen mounted on the far wall, its long edge abutting the mirror ceiling. Backlit by approximately 200 mono-frequency lights, the semi-circle and its reflection created the image of a massive, indoor sunset seen through the artificial mist emitted into the room. By walking to the far end of the hall, visitors could see how the sun was constructed, and the reverse of the mirror structure was visible from the top floor of the museum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82mA_f4jcV8&t=137s
The Weather Project (Olafur Eliasson, 2003)