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15 LiD 11-12/15
Graz is very low resolution,
but clads the entire build-
ing. Similarly, the company
integrated low resolution pixels
across Iluma, an entertainment
and retail complex in Singapore.
What this approach does is turns
buildings into iconic displays both during
the day and at night, and permits people to orientate
themselves in a city through instantaneous recognition.
That’s good advertising for the companies or services re-
siding within those buildings and harks back to the reasons
companies commission cutting-edge architects in the first
place. It also means that these buildings become good citi-
zens within the communities where they’re based.
These sorts of considerations are important, especially
where lighting is used for commemorative installations.
Two recent memorials were the Tribute in Light, an art
installation of 88 searchlights next to the site of the World
Trade Center, and Spectra, which lit up the London sky to
commemorate the 100th anniversary since the start of the
First World War.
Each of them used powerful searchlights to create deeply
emotive light sculptures; Tribute in Light recreating the out-
lines of the two World Trade Center towers destroyed on 11
September 2001, and Spectra recreating the searchlights
hunting for planes flying overhead. Residents across London
participated in the memorial by turning out their house-lights
or putting black-out material across their windows.
In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, UK Foreign
Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, said, "The lamps are going out all
over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
The end of the war brought stability and peace to Europe,
but new technology changed our night sky as well. We lost
darkness and the ability to see the stars at the exact moment
that our technology permitted us the idea that we might just
be able to go visit them.
It’s good to know that, even as we play with lighting and
design creative building façades, we are also reducing the
energy cost and light pollution of our cities so that darkness
becomes something to celebrate.
Spectra, London
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