Light Effect

This book exemplifies the complexity of the relationship between artificial lighting and architecture. Besides its ever-present, functional purpose, lighting is also an indelible part of the overall system of aesthetics and communication of any given project. Boosted by our growing scientific knowledge of the mechanisms of perception, today's sophisticated technologies and the growing range of light-sources offer an untold quantity of solutions that can be customised for specific situations, while guaranteeing greater energy saving. The very emergence of a specific designation for lighting design as a profession testifies to the complex possibilities of this new sphere of activity, and to the qualitative factors involved in intergrating the various technical, formal, and psychological aspects of the lighting system. In this sense, what we can note in contemporary lighting design is the sheer imaginative and creative flair that compounds a solid grounding in the underlying technological aspects, whose principal aim remains to achieve the utmost expressiveness. As documented in this stimulating and varied overview of new applications in architecture, interiors, installations, and in the design of the light fittings themselves, light is a language of its own - and often even becomes an element of the construction and composition, mindfully employed to communicate a message. Because the technology is in constant development, light is a unique instrument of inexhaustible versatility, open to an infinite number of interpretations, while preserving its ancient sense of mystery, and its arcane magic of dispelling darkness.