Light+Architecture


 * What is the importance of light in architecture ? **

Light is a fundamental element to architecture; it interacts with the space, affecting the way we perceive it. The way lighting acts can change the spatiality, the atmosphere and the visibility. The lit environment deals with brightness, shadows, lighting distribution, color and many other aspects that influence our visual experience and plays with our mood. Light is a necessity for sight and, in architecture, a utility. But light is also a powerful, though ephemeral, vehicle of expression. Because it moves, changes character, and comes and goes with its source, light has the power to give to the inert mass of architecture the living quality of nature. The architect, though he does not quite control it, can predict its behaviour well enough to catch its movements meaningfully. He channels it through openings into his spaces and molds it on the surfaces of his masses by changes of plane, making it enliven his forms by contrast with shadow.