en erco architecture light

E Lichtbericht 82

Published in May 2007

Coal washery at ZollvereinIn its former life, the Zollverein col-liery at Essen was the epitome of industrial efficiency and rational-thinking. The IBA Emscherpark international building exhibition (1989-99) gave the site a new lease of life: it now stands as a symbol and focal point of the successful structural change that the Ruhr-Valley region, once so characterised

by heavy industry, has undergone. Following an extensive conversion by the joint venture of OMA and Böll & Krabel, the largest individual building at Zollverein, the coal washery, has now become a visitor centre, museum and exhibition hall.

ERCO Lichtbericht 82 �

Everything must change, so that it stays the same. These words might well describe our design brief for the Lichtbericht 82. The previ-ously familiar bilingual version has now reverted to a monolingual format, but published in six different languages. As a result, there is more room for editorial contents and the layout has been thoroughly reworked.

In terms of content, the Lichtbericht is now more extensively subdivided into various column headings. From now on each Lichtbericht will feature an extensive project study in the “Report” column, containing more information from very different points of view. This issue features contributions about the coal washery at the Zollverein colliery and the ENTRY international design exhibition held there.

In future, the “Background” column will often contain contributions that are more freely written, project-independent and quite heavily text-based. For example, this issue has a feature on the patriarch of architectural lighting, the American lighting designer Richard Kelly, whose work still exerts a fundamental and substantial influence on contemporary lighting design.

Basic technological principles, product know-ledge and teaching on light will be discussed in the “Light & Technology” column. In this issue there is an article on the Light Server 64+ (which allows DALI projects with more than 64 participants to be actualised) as well as two rather more fundamental articles on perception and lighting design.

Last but not least, in the accustomed manner, there will of course be many interesting exam-ples of architectural lighting from all around the world, now integrated within the “Projects” column. The cross section ranges from Iittala’s flagship store to Ascot racecourse.

In summary, it can be said that the new Lichtbericht is faithful to the old, but also accom-modates the need for greater informative con-tent covering all aspects of light and lighting technology.

ERCO LichtberichtImprintPublisher: Tim H. MaackEditor in Chief: Martin KrautterDesign/Layout: Christoph Steinke, Simone HeinzePrinting: Mohn Media Mohndruck GmbH, Gütersloh

�028696000© 2007 ERCO

Photographs (Page): Frieder Blickle (�), RichardFrieder Blickle (�), Richard Bryant/arcaid.co.uk (25-29), Charles Crowell, Black Star (�), Ezra Stoller © ESTO (20–2�), Bernd Hoff (24, �6), Alexandra Lechner (�), Thomas Mayer (U�, 2–�, 6–�5, 24), Rudi Meisel (�4–�5), Thomas Pflaum (4–5), Alexander Ring (22–2�), Tomas Södergren (�7), The Richard Kelly Grant (�6–2�), Dirk Vogel (�, 2, �2–��, U4), Sabine Wenzel (�0–��), Edgar Zippel (2)

Translation: Lanzillotta Translations, Düsseldorf

Tim Henrik Maack

Background

Richard Kelly: Defining a Modern Architecture of LightAn essay by Margaret Maile on the pioneer of architectural lighting

Projects

22

24

25

Light Server 64+The user-friendly ERCO solution for large DALI installations

FocusSeeing and perceiving: the effects of perception in the practice of lighting design

Double focusSeeing and perceiving: the theory of perception

Introduction

Report

�6

26

�0

�2

�4

A villa sets sailWelcome to the captain’s bridge: the seaward orientation is the theme of this villa, built by Lord Norman Foster in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

Rembrandt: the quest of a geniusAn exhibition at Berlin’s Kulturforum Gallery

Iittala Flagship Store�� AmsterdamStore�� Amsterdam�� AmsterdamScenographic lighting with Light System DALI lends dramatic qualities to the Iittala store.

AscotThe venue of the famous racecourse has been given a £200M facelift with a new modern grandstand, and refurbished public entertainment areas.

About this issue

Keylights

Bright prospects

�

2

4

Coal Washery�� EssenThe coal washery, the heart of the disused Zollverein colliery, is both a symbol and a focal point of structural change in Germany’s Ruhr-Valley region.

The essence of tomorrowThe author Holm Friebe, on the inaugu-ral exhibition at Essen’s coal washery: ENTRY2006

Entry Paradise PavilionComputer-generated evolution: a dynamically lit environment whets the appetite for the architecture of the future.

6

�0

�2

�6 Backlights

Contents About this issue

Light & Technology

� ERCO Lichtbericht 82 ERCO Lichtbericht 82 �

Keylights

DüsseldorfKnown as the “Kö”, Düsseldorf’s Königsallee has worldwide fame as an exclusive high street. The Eickhoff fashion house is one of the top addresses with a long tradition here. Its brands include designers such as Dior, Gucci, Armani or Dolce & Gabbana. The capacious windows set the stand-ard with decoration and lighting. The professional tools for this sce-nic lighting are Parscan spotlights.

Eickhoff shop windowswww.eickhoff.eu

New York City “Vorsprung durch Technik”– this advertising slogan has long been understood in the USA without need for translation. With the new Audi Forum in Manhattan, the German premier automobile marque aims to further strengthen its presence in America. The spa-cious showrooms are located on the corner of 47th Street and Park Avenue. Spotlights from the Stella and Optec product groups provide the optimum scenic lighting for the vehicles.

Audi ForumArchitect: Oettle Design, Munich; CR Studio Architects, New York www.audi.com

StockholmThe Kungsträdgården is one of the picture-postcard scenes of the Swedish capital. Splendid Wilhelminian palaces line the park-like promenade. To illuminate these historical facades with uni-form, colour-neutral and energy-efficient lighting, Beamer spot-lights and Parscoop floodlights for metal halide lamps have now been mounted on the lampposts along the entire course of the street.

KungsträdgårdsgatanArchitect: Svante Forsström Arkitekter, StockholmLighting design: Claes Möller Ljusbyggarna, Stockholm

Zuchwil (Switzerland) Although the shape of this church reminds some people of a whale, the two concrete shells actually form a gesture holding the church interior like two protective hands. The New Apostolic Church in the small Swiss town has dared to go for contemporary architecture – with success. Downlights with halogen or metal halide lamps are perfectly integrated into the build-ing using concrete housings.

Neuapostolische Kirche (New Apostolic Church), ZuchwilArchitect: smarch architekten, Bern

Abu DhabiThis hotel of superlatives is held to be the largest and most luxurious hotel in the world. Under the man-agement of the Kempinski hotel chain, state guests and members of the jet set find the ultimate in luxury here. With �0� rooms and 9� suites, the entire complex is almost one kilometre long. The diameter of the large atrium dome measures 4� metres and its surface is decorated with silver and gold mosaics. ERCO supplied several thousand downlights and other luminaires to show off such fabu-lous opulence to its best advantage.

Hotel Emirates PalaceArchitect: Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo Lighting design: DHA Design, London and Lighting Design International, Londonwww.emiratespalace.com

BarcelonaThe Catalan top pastry chef Oriol Balaguer has made the manufac-ture of chocolate into an art form. He contrasts the opulence of his exquisite culinary creations with minimalist packaging and an uncompromising modern interior to his boutique at the Pza. San Gregorio Taumaturgo, �. Under the brilliant light of the Castor spot-lights the chocolates look extremely appetising and the work surfaces shine.

Oriol BalaguerArchitect and lighting design:GCA architects, Barcelonawww.oriolbalaguer.com

Cologne The office furnishings branch con-verges at the Orgatec trade fair on the banks of the Rhine every two years. After a difficult period, the industry is again gaining impetus. A series of small but refined and design-conscious firms from Spain now make a joint-presentation at the SIDI stand (Selección Interna-cional de Diseño) – under the light of TM spotlights on suspended track structures.

SIDI trade fair stand at Orgatec �006Stand architecture: Stefano Colli, BarcelonaLighting design: Stefano Colli & SIDI Team

www.sidi.es

FrankfurtA jewel of 19�0’s classic-modern architecture – in the form of the restaurant for the swimming baths "Waldschwimmbad" – has gone unnoticed for many years in the Frankfurt suburb of Neu-Isenburg. Following extensive renovations in keeping with its listed building status and after elegant extension work and new indoor and outdoor lighting from ERCO, the restaurant is once again resplendent in its new finery. The new name also pays tribute to the Bauhaus artist Lyonel Feininger.

Restaurant LyonelArchitect: Tom Eisenbach, Frankfurtwww.restaurant-lyonel.de

DortmundSince Dortmund made the transi-tion from industrial conurbation to service-provision sector, the working-class atmosphere in tradi-tional areas such as the Weststadt also changed. Residents of very different origins mix freely here and in the summer they take over the public space of Westpark with its green expanses and ancient tree lines. Sensitively designed scenic lighting using Tesis in-ground luminaires satisfies the needs of this application, adding much to the quality and safety of a stay in the park.

Westpark LightingLighting design: Forum InterArt, Uwe Kiwitt, Dortmund

StockholmHand-tied carpets don’t have to be staid and middle-class: as is proven by The Rug Company, an English firm whose splendid carpet-artworks are styled by well-known fashion and interior designers. In the new showroom in the centre of Stockholm, the designers opted for downlights and wallwashers from the Quadra range.

The Rug Company ShowroomArchitect: Guy Stansfeld Architects Limited, Londonwww.therugcompany.info

Palma de MallorcaContemporary art in an over 700-year-old cathedral: in the past few years the Balearic artist Miquel Barceló has installed a ceramic relief measuring �00m� in the St. Peter’s Chapel of the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca. The artwork is illuminated by Tesis in-ground wallwashers and Stella spotlights.

Catedral La Seo, Capilla de San Pedro Lighting design: Feliciano Fuster

New York City When it comes to fitting out the stores of its globally expanding chain, the Italian jeans and sports-wear label Diesel has long been relying on ERCO lighting tech-nology. And the New York store at 1�5 Spring Street in SoHo, is no different: the lighting for the attractive premises with its his-toric cast-iron columns is provided by Optec spotlights and Gimbal recessed directional luminaires for metal halide lamps.

Diesel Store Architect: Diesel Interior Design Department, Molvenawww.diesel.com

StockholmThe new Stockholm showrooms from Kvadrat combine Scandina-vian loft aesthetics with perfect lighting technology: tracks with spotlights and wallwashers from the Optec product range ensure optimum conditions for presenting the high-quality domestic textiles from Denmark.

Kvadrat Showroom Architect: Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, ParisLighting design: Vincent Muracciole, Pariswww.kvadrat.dk


Situation Kunst, BochumArchitects: Soan Architekten (Gido Hülsmann, Bochum; Dirk Boländer, Warburg) Photographer: Thomas Pflaum, Castrop-Rauxel

www.situation-kunst.de

Bright prospects


Zollverein 2001 Master Plan: Rem Koolhaas, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)Coal washery conversion: joint venture of OMA and the architectural design offices of Böll & Krabel, EssenLighting design: Licht Kunst Licht, Bonn/BerlinProject team: Nicole Kober, Stefan HofmannPhotos: Thomas Mayer

www.zollverein.de

In the years 1928-1932, Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer constructed their Pit No. XII at Zoll-verein, thereby creating not only one of the world’s greatest and most modern coal mines of its time, but also a masterpiece of industrial architecture. The complex’s strictly geometri-cal layout of frugal individual cubes remains impressive to this day with its rational aesthet-ics and spartan use of forms. The extraction and subsequent processing of the coal in the coal washery and coking plant ended in 198� and 1993 respectively. There was practically no public access to the entire complex during the pit’s working life. It was only after the site was redeveloped during the IBA Emscherpark inter-national building exhibition prior to 1999 and had become a listed building in 2000, and after the entire complex was included in UNESCO’s world cultural heritage listing in 2001, that the way was finally paved for rededicating this impressive industrial location.

As early as 199�, the �esign Zentrum Nord-�esign Zentrum Nord-rhein Westfalen moved into the colliery boiler moved into the colliery boiler house, whose interior was redesigned by Lord Norman Foster and the Essen-based offices of Böll & Krabel. Future-orientated companies have also successfully moved in; creative companies and design agencies have taken up tenancies in offices, studios and workshops at Pit Shaft XII. In a move aimed at safeguarding the future of high quality design, the Zollverein School of Management and �esign began its first semes-ter this year with 18 students. The Japanese architectural group SANAA received the keys for their unusual new premises – the first new building on the colliery site for fifty years – at a handover in July 200�.

Rem Koolhaas and his renowned Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) presented a master plan for the Zollverein colliery in 2001 in order to codify what the crucial design criteria are in a continual, careful development process. One of the largest individual buildings, the coal washery of Pit Shaft XII, has been renovated since 2003 in a joint venture between OMA and the architectural design offices of Böll & Krabel and was presented to a wide audience in the context of ENTRY200�. For 100 days from the 2�th of August to the 3rd of �ecember 200�, the thoughts of architects and visitors revolved around the questions of the design of tomorrow. The Ruhr Museum and the Visitor Centre of the Zollverein pit will move into the former coal washery when the ENTRY200� draws to a close.

The entire usable area of approx. �,500m2 is spread over three levels. Modern fixtures and fittings make an attractive contrast to the rudimentary industrial architecture with all its visible constructional elements and technical

Coal Washery, EssenThe coal washery, the heart of the disused Zollverein colliery, is both a symbol and a focal point of structural change in Germany’s Ruhr-Valley region. From a heavy industrial complex to a world heritage site, it is now a venue for the architecture and design of the future.

Having proven itself during the ENTRY200�, the new infrastructure of the coal washery will host the Ruhr Museum as of 2008 – and act as a wel-coming portal for visitors to the Ruhr-Valley from all around the world.

equipment. Spacious halls are interspersed with surprising little closets, while bold colours add highlighting features, such as the intensively orange fluorescent main staircase. But, the most spectacular – and hotly debated – incursion into the substance of the building is its new access: a gigantic, external escalator bringing the visitor first of all to the Visitor Centre’s “Level 24” – named after the 24 metre height difference. The tour starts here and descends down through the exhibition levels, allowing the visitors to follow the “way of the coal”, metaphorically speaking, despite the fact that the original, vertical spatial structure of the former coal silo has largely been replaced by the new, horizontally orientated exhibition levels. The clear separation between original and additional sections of the building can be easily seen with the newly constructed facade perfectly balancing modern functionality with historical monument preservation. Above all, the way that the conversion puts minimum distance between the historical building sub-stance and the visitors goes to make the Essen coal washery a milestone of the re-usage of relics from the industrial age.

Initially hotly debated, now widely loved: the ride on the giant esca-lator makes an exciting prelude for every visit to the coal washery.

8 ERCO Lichtbericht 82 ERCO Lichtbericht 82 9

Through its panoramic windows the event hall on the roof of the coal washery affords mag-nificent views across the Zollverein colliery site and the entire region.

building service components, such as ventila-tion, lighting and event equipment, plus multi-media elements. Parscan spotlights for tungsten halogen lamps are aimed vertically downwards and can be switched and dimmed in groups as required in order to provide optimum lighting for any kind of event.

Large dimensioned industrial architecture and miniature exhibition structures; diffuse daylight and concentrated artificial light. The old and the new coupling memories of the dirty, arduous and dangerous working world of yes-terday’s industry with the vision of tomorrow’s highly motivated designers – all this presented in full focus here at the Zollverein colliery.

Spatial dramaturgy: visitors leaving the func-tionally illuminated exhi-bition areas step into the glowing orange world of the newly added and effectively illuminated staircase.

�ownward-aimed Parscan spotlights provide flexible lighting in the hall’s inte-rior, while the continuous row of downlights around the eaves produces a car-pet of light on the ter-race, allowing the glass wall to appear transpar-ent even after dark.

The qualities of the cool, indirect light are clearly distinguished from the warmer halogen tone of the direct, aimed light. The lighting of the defunct machinery is low in shadows to avoid over-dramatisation.

The concrete arches above the industrial rail tracks become an arcade of light: effectively illu-minated with Cylinder surface-mounted down-lights from ERCO’s out-door luminaire range.

The lighting lines combine installation and lighting functions, plus their technical look allows them to blend seamlessly into the surroundings of the former industrial com-plex. The integrated track holds spotlights and wallwashers from the Optec series.

Licht Kunst Licht – the teamThe lighting design office of Licht Kunst Licht, headed up by Prof. Andreas Schulz, was founded in Bonn and Berlin in 1992 and is one of the big names in its field in Germany today. Amongst many other famous buildings, the company’s refer-ence list includes the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, the Novartis Campus in Basle, the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum and the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl near Cologne. The Zollverein project has already kept the office’s designers busy for over two years: Licht Kunst Licht teamed up with a land-scape architect and a graphic designer to win the competition for the design of the Zollverein park’s outdoor site at the start of 2005. In a parallel move, the contract for the lighting design of the coal washery also went to Bonn. Project team members Nicole Kober (above) and Stefan Hofmann worked on the complex task of designing and implementing a stringent and economical concept for the lighting of this extremely heterogeneous architecture.

www.lichtkunstlicht.com

The lighting concept of the coal washeryFor the ambient lighting in the building, the lighting designers from Licht Kunst Licht came up with what is known as “lighting lines” – a suspended sheet-steel profile, the design of which draws from the familiar canon of the steel skeleton construction used here. It serves as a holder for acoustic and communication elements, as a carrier for indirect illumination components and as the installation level for ERCO 3-circuit track.

The deliberately chosen cold-white light colour of the T1� fluorescent lamps fitted in the indirect units produces a uniform diffuse ceil-ing of light, which is reminiscent of the original combination of the daylight ingressing from the side and the general-diffuse fluorescent lamps of the industrial lighting. �immable elec-tronic ballasts allow the luminance levels to be adjusted to the different room sizes. The warm-toned direct components combine to give a cumulative effect without being dramatic. The illuminated objects are lit with reduced quanti-ties of light from at least four positions in order to avoid heavy shadow. This system will also allow future lighting tasks to be tackled with flexibility: be it traffic zones, event areas or an exhibition area. The tracks are equipped from the large stock of ERCO Optec spotlights featur-ing different lamps, wattages and light intensity distributions.

The roof construction on top of the coal washery is a special architectural feature as it now contains a hall for events. The unconcealed ceiling area accommodates all the relevant


Zollverein as a centre of attraction: the Ruhr-Valley seeks its future in the much-quoted “Creative Industries” and its young, academic environment.

Sprawling, subversive structures take over the area: impressions from the exhibition section “Talking Cities”.

Architecture, spectacular enough even for the tab-loids: Francesca Ferguson, Head of the Swiss Archi-tectural Museum and co-curator of ENTRY, is delighted at the report.

Visions for the tomorrow of yesterday: in addition to contemporary approaches, the “Open House” exhibi-tion of the Vitra Museum also presents a retrospec-tive of utopian dwellings of the modern age.

The third millennium is ‘up’ but is it ‘running?’ Our future is being made – the question is by whom? Since designers already act as mediators between the different worlds of experts, there is much to say for giving them a key role in shap-ing the immediate and mid-term future – and to have them cushion this process as humanely as possible. Yet at the same time, within the trade, one also misses a little of the pioneering spirit and the readiness to leave traditional terrain and face the new challenges, while the decisive formulations are undertaken in other fields, e.g. by technology and the natural sciences. Back in 2004, the Canadian designer, Bruce Mau, attempted to use his “Massive Change: The Future of Global Design” project as a vehicle to persuade his partners to commit to imminent massive change by ‘signing up’ to the result-ant extended understanding of design – which only in the rarest of cases had any connection with interior design. But the future should be all about how scientific findings and technological innovations can be used for improving human co-existence. One of the core messages is that, in most cases these days, design is and remains invisible – until it goes wrong, of course.

The baton was taken up by the Essen-based exhibition project “ENTRY2006: Wie werden wir morgen leben?“ (“ENTRY2006: How will we live tomorrow?”). For 100 days at the end of last year, this was a guest exhibition at the Zoll-verein’s coal washery, a conversion by Rem Kool-haas, where it not only acted as the prelude to the imminent Cultural Capital Year – 2010, but

also thoroughly sounded out the future areas and possibilities for design and architecture. The exhibition’s slogan, which will presumably outlive the event itself, is “B.A.N.G. Design” – the very name expresses the optimistic possibility of a new start or a new Big Bang in the cosmos of design.

Actually, B.A.N.G. is an acronym for Bits, Atoms, Neurons and Genes, i.e. those micro-scopic and sub-microscopic levels on which and from which we expect the future quantum leaps and fundamental innovations to be made in that laborious process we call “progress”. As a matter of fact, the fusion of technology and biology – anticipated long ago in the relevant Sci-Fi novels as “Wetware” – is advancing at breathtaking pace. As is impressively shown by one part of the Essen exhibition entitled “Entry Paradise”, curated by Werner Lippert and Peter Wippermann: robots are becoming more and more like humans and at the same time mortal flesh is being up-graded by technological means, with the two sides presumably meeting some-where in the middle. The progress of informa-tion technology promises more artificial intelli-gence even in this century, while biotechnology and medicine keep tinkering around at trying to make man immortal.

However, despite this promising virgin terri-tory, we must not lose sight of the fact that the most serious problems of design are currently still located on the macro level. Most of these problems concern the fact that people have bodies – bodies that have to be somewhere and preferably somewhere comfortable. Architec-

ture, the cityscape, the public and private spaces still remain the backdrop against which the entire tragedy and comedy of human existence is played out. This compels us to think about how technological progress can also be trans-formed into social progress, resulting in new forms of shared habitation right here and now – and also spread across the entire planet.

These issues are the focus of the second part of the exhibition, “Talking Cities” curated by Francesca Ferguson and her “Urban Drift” office. The exhibits assumed here under the subject matter of cities do not so much reflect the engi-neer’s viewpoint for technological advances and pioneering achievements as the perspective of those immediately affected by progress, globali-sation and urban change. The “Micropolitics of Urban Space” tells of smaller and more concrete utopias, frequently in the sense of a highly imaginative appropriation and changed usage of public space and architecture that could well be dubbed “Guerrilla Urbanism”. This begins with the striking and insightful proposal of industrial designer Andreas Bergmann to press building site railings into benches using a simple metal-forming process. It does not stop with the “Land for free” initiative, whereby parcels of land on the industrial wastelands of the Ruhr-Valley area will be given away until 2010. The aim here is to attract settlers into exchanging their loft apartments in New York or Berlin for a hillside location on a former slagheap now populated with birch trees. All of a sudden we have arrived back at the here and now, in the middle of the structural change of the Ruhr-Valley region. We

are back in Essen, the city that is transforming itself into a location for creative industry, lasting well beyond the imminent Cultural Capital Year. Back in the Zollverein mine, which was saved from simply being conserved as an historical monument to a world heritage site, transform-ing this ”junk space” into an open location of the future, thanks to the successful intervention of Koolhaas and his office OMA.

Tradition is seen here not so much as a dead weight but as a source of inspiration, as Andrej Kupetz, President of the Zollverein School of Management and Design makes clear in the accompanying booklet for Entry Paradise: “In terms of Zollverein’s future, we have to consider it a stroke of pure luck of the changing values of society, that the more we post-industrial people are liberated from physical labour and industrial production processes, the more we discover the romanticism of the mechanised age, a time that smelt of machine oil and tasted of coal dust.” These sentiments are most beautifully summed up by the Norwegian artist Sissel Tolaas in her contribution to “Talking Cities”, which simultaneously also links the molecular level of B.A.N.G. Design with the urban macro-level. For her olfactory installation, she has captured the charismatic fragrances of different cities, synthesised them in the lab and bottled them in scent bottles. In addition, she has had a perfume called “Essense” produced for her in a limited production run of 200 bottles especially for the Essen exhibition. In very post-modern and nostalgic fashion, it smells of coal dust and rust. Like Proust’s Madeleine cakes, the homemade

cakes that conjured up childhood memories, it evokes immediate images of the old Ruhr-Valley in the visual cortex of our Wetware.

LiteratureMassive Change – A Manifesto for the Future of Global Design (Bruce Mau, Phaidon)

Entry Paradise – Neue Welten des Designs(Gerhard Seltmann and Werner Lippert (Publ.), Birkhäuser)

Talking Cities – The Micropolitics of Urban Space / Die Mikropolitik des urbanen Raums(Francesca Ferguson & Urban Drift Productions Ltd. (Publ.), Birkhäuser)

The essence of tomorrowThe author Holm Friebe, on the inaugural exhibition at Essen’s coal washery: ENTRY2006 (26 August – 3 December 2006)

Surreal: the lighting effects using direct light contrasted with the room’s raw industrial surfaces increase the aura of the exhibits.

A contribution from the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York: “Second Skin” is dedicated to new materials for furniture, fashion and architecture.


Entry Paradise PavilionComputer-generated evolution: a dynami-cally lit environment whets the appetite for the architecture of the future.

“How will we live tomorrow?” This is the central theme of the ENTRY2006 exhibition. Designers and architects from more than 20 countries gave very different answers to this in the form of innovative products, materials, clothes, houses and ideas. With its visionary exhibits, the exhibi-tion in the former coal washery on the world heritage site of the Zollverein in Essen gave a fantastic glimpse of the future. The “Entrée” to the various themed areas took the form of the “ENTRY Paradise” theme world. This took the visitors on a journey from the classical industrial and emotional design of the 20th century to the future design of Bits, Atoms, Neuro technology and Genetic engineering – known as “B.A.N.G. Design” for short. Architect Chris Bosse from PTW Architects in Sydney created the “Entry Paradise Pavilion” for this futuristic reflection.

Born out of foamInspired by microscopic cell structures and aided by special architectural software, Bosse created structures resembling irregular natural forms such as foams, sponges or coral reefs. In this so-called “Biomorphic Architecture”, the algorithms of growth and optimisation for organic structures are translated conceptually into architectural forms. Using this same method the architect from the team of PTW architects, CCDI and Arup generated the designs for the “Watercube” indoor swimming pool for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing – a shimmering blue, transparent, lightweight construction derived from the geometric structure of foaming water.

This process was used for ENTRY2006 to create a pavilion with a fascinating biomorphic form made of white elastic high-tech textiles – a material used for creating minimal surfaces by a whole series of architects and designers, including Frei Otto, Aleksandra Kasuba, 3deluxe or Ernesto Neto. Working from the computer-generated cutting patterns, it took Australian sailmakers four weeks to manufacture the form. The finished pavilion occupies a space of 350m3 when put up, yet it weighs a mere 17kg and folds down to fit into a suitcase – which is how Bosse brought it to Essen.

Underwater worlds simulated by lightingA team from the architectural lighting spe-cialists ERCO in Lüdenscheid added dynamic coloured lighting effects to the pavilion in order to bring the “aesthetics of form” to light – or in fact to coloured light! Ever-changing light scenes with time-controlled colour pro-gressions were projected onto the fabric. In addition, reflected light from the illuminated “mirror balls”, also formed different patterns. In this way the team from ERCO created a vir-

tual underwater world. “The water theme was specified by Chris Bosse,” states Marc Hartings, head of the Entry Paradise Pavilion project at ERCO. “We vary this theme with our lighting system and present the visitor new and ever-changing lighting moods and colour composi-tions.”

The light was produced by state-of-the-art, DALI-compatible lighting tools from ERCO. The luminaires used were: Focalflood floodlights with T16 fluorescent lamps in red, green and blue, Focalflood facade luminaires, varychrome LEDs and Stella spotlights with interference col-our filters for sky blue. RGB colour mixing tech-nology allowed various colours of light to be produced with the fluorescent lamps and LEDs. The lens system for the varychrome Focalflood facade luminaires were adjusted so that narrow beams of light produced a gentle wash across wall surfaces while at the same time allowing a wider light distribution in the opposite direc-tion.

Every luminaire was individually controlled by the digital lighting control system known as ERCO Light System DALI. Even the mirror balls were connected to the control system via a switching actuator. “We would not have even been able to implement the light scenes in this form with analogue technology,” com-mented Jens von der Brelie, a design engineer at ERCO. “A conventional system would have also required far too much space for the distribution cabinets and time for installation.” Instead of permanently wiring complex lighting installa-tions with a large number of separately control-lable circuits, the luminaires in DALI systems are individually addressable. Power supply and circuit control are performed independent of each other. DALI-compatible control gear make a range of functions available in every luminaire, such as switching and dimming; these functions are controlled by the lighting control system using what is known as the DALI protocol (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface).

The design of the Entry Paradise Pavilion was created on the computer with the help of evolu-tionary algorithms and sailmaking software. Architect Chris Bosse let the structure “grow” fol-lowing organic principles.


tune the light

The dynamic lighting effect of a moving bubble pattern on the pavilion’s surface is produced by “mirror balls” illuminated by Stella spotlights. DALI not only controls the brightness of the spotlights but also, via switching actuators, the movement of the balls.

To assist the design and preparation of the lighting system, Chris Bosse provided the ERCO team with virtual, digital models of the pavil-ion. After constructing the real pavilion, only a few hours were left for programming the light scenes. “Once the electrical installation of the Light Clients and the Light Server was completed, we arranged the luminaires on-site graphically, using Light Studio’s WYSIWYG process and then programmed all the light scenes and progressions,” states Marc Hartings. “Those involved always had the results right before their eyes and were able to determine a running order of the best light scenes, which would then repeat on a time loop.” Chris Bosse himself was also keen to lend a hand when it came to choosing the colours. The user-friendly software tools such as the colour wheel or the colour and progression library allowed him to intuitively set the individual properties of the Light Clients, such as dimmer setting or colour locus, as well as the dynamic progressions for entire luminaire groups.

Varychrome LED lumi-naires are the ideal tool for intensive colour effects. Here in the coal washery, DALI-controlled varychrome LED Focal-flood facade luminaires can cast a gentle grazing light in any colour onto the pavilion’s textile surface.

DALI put to the test: the Light System DALI suc-cessfully performs tasks previously requiring the use of stage technology.

As a result, the fantastic flow of colour moods increased the magical effect of the innovative pavilion architecture and prepared the visitors for the exhibition’s challenging themes.

Beijing WatercubeNational Swimming Center Photo: PTW Architects/ Arup/CCDI

Digital dreams: Chris BosseA German proverb says “dreams are like the foam on the sea” – yet it is in foam that physics has found a highly interesting research object. It is not just scientists who are fascinated by things such as the ability of soap bubbles to find the optimised form for covering a given volume, or the stabil-ity and economy of foam-like structures, like the sponges and other forms found in nature. Architects like Chris Bosse also find new inspiration here for designing and structuring new spatial support structures. These are highly efficient, lightweight, transparent and more rigid than any con-ventional building and allow space, structure and appearance to melt into one. Born in Stuttgart in 1971, Bosse studied in Germany (incl. Institut für Leichtbau, under Prof. Freifür Leichtbau, under Prof. Frei, under Prof. Frei Otto) and Switzerland and has worked in several European architectural firms. He concluded his postgraduate studies at the

University of Stuttgart with a dissertation on the effects of virtual and real form-finding on architecture. Working with S.M. Oreyzi, Cologne (www.smoarchitektur.com), he designed the “Bubble Highrise” for Berlin in 2002 (published in: a+u, 05_01). Since 2003 he has been work-ing at PTW Architects in Sydney on various high-profile projects in China, Japan and the Middle East. These include a large-scale space-frame construction, which was inspired by bubble structures and designed on the com-puter by the architects and engineers using “evolutionary algorithms”, for the National Swimming Centre for Beijing 2008. The build-ing, known as the “Watercube”, has been under construction in China since 2004 and has already received the Atmosphere Award at the 9th Venice Biennial. In another pavilion, this time a marquee for MOËT in Melbourne, the young architect again explored his interest in unusual structures, creating a freeform interior based on the physical properties of champagne bubbles and minimal surface areas. Chris Bosse’s work is widely published internation-ally and he guest-lectures at various universi-ties – most recently at the AA London and the Columbia University New York. The “Out from Down Under” exhibition presented works from himself and PTW this spring at the American Institute of Architecture, San Francisco.

www.chrisbosse.dewww.ptw.com.au


Lighting is such a large part of the visual arts—architecture, most of all—that I’m sure the best we can do today will be inadequate tomorrow. I can logically project a great many techniques in lighting to improve people’s lives or to make a house more beautiful, but it’s all theory until we have the record of experience, which we are only beginning to write. —Richard Kelly, 1958

It is difficult to imagine what architectural lighting today would look like without the rich and lasting contributions of the pio-neering twentieth-century lighting designer Richard Kelly (1910-1977). His deep influ-ence is so tightly imbedded in the theory and practice of modern architectural light-ing design that it has become almost invis-ible. Many of us recognize the principles and the techniques Kelly innovated even if we are unaware of their attribution. Similarly we are familiar with many of iconic projects to which Kelly contributed although we may be surprised to learn of his involvement with these modern architectural masterpieces, such as the Glass House, New Canaan, CT (1949), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (1953), The Seagram Building, New York, NY (1958), Dulles International Airport, Dulles, VA (1963), and the Yale Center of British Art, New Haven, CT (1974). The long list of prominent twentieth-cen-tury architects and designers with whom Kelly collaborated with during his career is equally impressive and includes such fig-ures as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, Louis I. Kahn, I. M. Pei, Eliot Noyes, Richard Neutra, Gordon Bunshaft, Alexander Girard, Henry Dreyfuss, and Florence Knoll. With many of these architects and designers Kelly worked on multiple projects and developed mature and mutually respectful working relationships. In this way Kelly was able to realize his goal of fostering a true integration of lighting and architecture. In addition to his significant body of work, Kelly also frequently served as a visiting professor at numerous institutions including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Rhode Island School of Design, and Illinois Institute of Technology, where he taught the art of lighting to generations of design-ers. As a practitioner and educator Kelly was instrumental in the development of modern architectural lighting design.

Essential to understanding Kelly’s impact on the profession, is an appreciation for tenacity with which he fought for the acceptance of lighting design as an integral part of architecture. Since the introduction of electric light in the later part of the nine-teenth century, the relationship between architecture and electric lighting developed slowly and often antagonistically—some architects and theorist believed that archi-tectural lighting represented a threat to the integrity of architecture and that it had the potential to overwhelm architectural form. Despite this opposition, Kelly consistently

described light as the key mode through which we understand and experience archi-tecture and the designed environment. Adamant that modern lighting design must offer more than functional illumination or decorative embellishment, Kelly argued that it must be addressed equally in the initial design phase with other primary architec-tural elements. He did much to change the perception of lighting design within the architectural community and his work was recognized by prominent professional archi-tectural associations on several occasions during his lifetime. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) honored Kelly twice, first in 1964 with a Collaborative Achievement Award for his contributions to the Seagram Building and the Fours Seasons Restaurant, and again in 1967 with a Gold Medal for his cumulative work on “light in architecture.”

Kelly, who was born just a decade after the turn of the century in Zanesville, Ohio, took an early interest in the potential of lighting to effect the perception and experi-ence of our surroundings (supposedly his first revelation occurred as a child when he became annoyed with the poor illumina-tion in his mother’s kitchen). In his teens Kelly became involved with his high school’s theatrical productions, where he began to explore light as an expressive design ele-ment. After completing high school, Kelly moved to New York City and while attend-ing Columbia University began designing lighting fixtures for various manufactur-ers. After graduating from Columbia, Kelly worked for a short time with a prominent New York interior designer, but quickly man-aged to gather the resources to open his own lighting design office in 1935. This was a frustrating time for Kelly however, as he described, “There weren’t lighting consult-ants then. Nobody would pay for my ideas, but they would buy fixtures, so I designed lighting and I designed lighting fixtures which I made and sold.” In this way Kelly found a means to design light for architec-ture—by creating new fixtures and urging for their architectural integration.

Expanding his practice and working with various architects and designers in the years leading up to World War II, Kelly found that the increasing popularity of modern architectural forms and materials, especially glass, required new lighting applications not then available on the market. However, Kelly stressed that new lamps and fixtures alone would not solve the problem. According to Kelly, modern architecture would only be fully realized, both formally and conceptu-ally, with the careful manipulation of light, designed in relation to modern form and with a thorough understanding of modern architectural materials. Early on he recog-nized the great need for the modernization of the lighting industry, both in terms of technology and programmatic design. With the outbreak of World War II, Kelly, who was ineligible for service, enrolled in the Yale University School of Architecture believing that with a degree in architecture he would

able to legitimately assert his ideas, as well as his designs, among architects. Not want-ing to be considered a fixture designer or lighting engineer, Kelly was determined to be an architect of light.

Kelly graduated from Yale in 1944 with a BA in architecture. This was a turning point for Kelly and dramatically set him apart from many of his peers in the lighting industry. Considering himself a “special-ized architect,” Kelly began to use the title “architectural lighting consultant” and in so doing distinguished his approach and work from that of lighting engineers and theatrical lighting designers. He became one of the first American architectural lighting designers to be professionally trained as an architect and to work completely independ-ently from both fixture manufacturers and electrical engineering contractors. In this way, he helped define the independence of the discipline as we know it today. From here forward, Kelly spoke of light as architecture and in architectural terms, helping establish the principles and vocabulary of modern architectural lighting design.

It is during this period that Kelly also began to develop his unique philosophy of light, which he introduced in 1952 in a lec-ture entitled “Lighting as an Integral Part of Architecture.” In this lecture Kelly described his theory of “Light Energy Impacts,” which formed the core of his philosophical and methodological approach to lighting design. He introduced his theory, explaining: “In front of the mind’s eye are three elements in the perceptions of visual design—three elemental kinds of light effect…(1) focal glow or highlight, (2) Ambient luminescence or graded washes, (3) Play of brilliants or sharp detail. These three elements are also the order of imaginative planning.” For Kelly, each of these elemental light effects had a specific character and role to play in the articulation and performance of the designed environment. Focal glow, Kelly defined as “the pool of light at your favorite reading chair,” and suggested that it, “draws attention…sells merchandise, separates the important from the unimportant.” Ambient luminescence Kelly described as “twilight haze on a wide river where shore and water and sky are indistinguishable…It is also all we know of ‘indirect’ lighting.” He also pro-posed that ambient luminescence “produces shadowless illumination…minimizes form and bulk…and the importance of all things and people. It can suggest the freedom of space and can suggest infinity.” The final element, play of brilliants, Kelly described as “Times Square at night…sunlight on a fountain or a rippling brook” and argued that it had the potential to “excite the optic nerves…stimulate the body and spirit…and sharpen the wit.” Kelly concluded his lecture stressing that “visual beauty is perceived by an interplay of all three kinds of light,” with one element generally playing a prominent role in the total composition. According to Kelly’s theory it is the totality of the lumi-nous composition that is most critical to the

success of the lighting plan. By identifying the elemental light effects that directly and powerfully shape visual perception, Kelly established a lasting legacy with his “Light Energy Impacts.”

In addition to pursuing his interests in the relationship between light, perception, and sensual experience, Kelly was actively involved in the physical application of his principles of illumination. By 1950, only six years after graduating from Yale, Kelly had completed over 30 public projects and as least as many private residences. In this period Kelly collaborated on a variety of projects, designing the lighting for such well-known New York City locations as Stork Club Cub Room, the Little Casino Club (with Oscar Nitzschke), Tiffany & Co., and Bonwit Teller, as well as the Container Corporation of America’s executive offices in Chicago.

Kelly’s early work in private residences represents perhaps his most innovative work in this period and best prefaces his later work. Two projects in particular stand out as highlights of Kelly’s early career: Richard Neutra’s Edgar J. Kaufman, Sr. house in Palm Springs, California (1947) and Philip Johnson’s Glass House. Both residences exemplify Kelly’s response to the challenge of lighting modern architecture. These residences also illustrate Kelly’s apprecia-tion for the modern ideal of creating fluid-ity between indoors and outdoors. Kelly’s lighting program for the Kaufmann House demonstrates his early experimentation with a number of illumination techniques that he would successfully develop in the following decade, including luminous ceilings, lumi-nous walls, and perimeter downlighting—all of which facilitated the connection between the interior and the exterior. Similarly, at the Glass House, Kelly used strong perimeter downlighting in combination with carefully edited landscape illumination to maintain the transparency of Johnson’s glass-walled pavilion after dark. Looking back at the design of the Glass House in 1979, Philip Johnson commented, “When I first moved into the glass house there was no light— other than the sun. You can imagine the problem with reflections. If you had one bulb, you saw six. When it got dark outside, there wasn’t anything a lighting man could do, or so I thought. Richard [Kelly] founded the art of residential lighting the day he designed the lighting for the Glass House.”

In the next two decades Kelly would col-laborate on some of the most significant projects in the history of twentieth-century architecture. Indeed, it is hard to believe in our age of specialization that one man (who worked very independently and never had a large supporting staff) could have realized so many successful and extensive projects in such a short period of time. Between 1955 and 1965, Kelly completed roughly 100 projects. Among this extensive list is the Seagram Building and its ground breaking “tower of light” effect, which represents the first monumentally-scaled example of luminous architecture in the United States.

The pioneer of lighting design, Richard Kelly, saw himself first and foremost as a specialised architect.

Richard Kelly (left) and Edison Price, who, as a luminaire builder, was his congenial partner on many projects. In the background, the model of the Barbizon Plaza Chandelier (circa 1955).

Richard Kelly: Defining a Modern Architecture of LightMargaret Maile Petty, Design historian


It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Seagram Building’s lighting program, as one reviewer indicated shortly after its completion, the lighting of the Seagram Building gave, “artificial light an entirely new significance as an element of architec-tural design.” In a similar tone, Architectural Forum described the Seagram Building in 1958 as “one of the best-illuminated build-ings ever constructed.”

In this ten-year period Kelly also com-pleted a series of vastly scaled projects with Eero Saarinen that helped shape the look and performance of a variety of typologies of modern architecture, including corporate headquarters and research laboratories, universities, theaters and auditoriums, and airports. Perhaps most influential were Saarinen and Kelly’s collaborations on a number of corporate research laboratory complexes including the General Motors Technical Center (1956) in Detroit, Michi-gan, The IBM Thomas Watson Research Center (1961) in Yorktown, New York, and the Bell Telephone Laboratories (1962) in Homdel, New Jersey. For each of these projects Kelly designed integrated lighting programs encompassing offices, laborato-ries, lobbies, showrooms, facades and land-scape. Kelly’s ideal of the complete synthesis of light with the designed environment was realized on an unparalleled scale with these projects.

Even in the 1950s and 60s, long before daylighting became a buzzword, Kelly advo-cated for the incorporation of daylight into the architectural and lighting program. He believed that lighting design must holisti-cally address the circadian nature architec-ture, arguing that, “The handling of forms, the meaning of a room has to relate to day-light.” The sensitivity and sophistication of Kelly’s knowledge and appreciation of day-lighting is revealed in his collaborations with Louis Kahn. For Kahn’s Kimbell Museum, Kelly collaborated with Edison Price and the mathematician Issac Goodbar, designing the now-famous cycloid vault and curved perforated aluminum reflector that chan-nels reflected and diffuse natural light into the museum. Together this extraordinar-ily talented group created one of the most beautiful and well-daylit museums of the modern era.

Kelly’s many fascinating collaborations from this period are far too numerous to dis-cuss in detail here. The deep and lasting pro-fessional relationships that Kelly developed with Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, and Louis Kahn rightfully deserve a volume of their own. Fortunately, the current Kelly exhibition, “Light Energy Impact: The Legacy of Richard Kelly,” hosted by ERCO in collaboration with ELDA, is traveling to six different locations through-out Europe this year and will give many the opportunity to experience and explore a wealth unique of materials drawn from the Richard Kelly archive. This exhibition helps us remember and appreciate Kelly’s enor-mous contribution to the practice of modern

architectural lighting design. His devotion to forging the discipline of architectural lighting design and his relentless efforts to legitimize light as a primary architectural material may serve as an inspiration to us all, and encourage us always to strive for greater levels of excellence in the architecture of light.

About the authorMargaret Maile is an architectural lighting design historian and teaches at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City. Maile‘s Master‘s thesis focused on Richard Kelly and his pioneering work in collaboration with Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe. Currently a Ph.D. candidate at The Bard Graduate Center in New York City, Maile‘s publications include: "Spiegelungen / Reflections“ in Leuchtende Bauten: Architektur der Nacht (Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlage, 2006), "Illuminating the Glass Box: Archi tectural lighting design and the performance of modern architecture in postwar America“ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians v6 (June 2007), and "The Seagram Building: Standing Up to the Test of Time,“ Professional Lighting Design n50 (July/August 2006), as well as numerous articles in Architectural Lighting Magazine.

Wiley HouseWestport, Connecticut, 1954Architect: Philip Johnson

Van Meter ResidenceSpringfield, Illinois, 196263Architects: King & Murphy

Wireless Chandelier The BarbizonPlaza HotelNew York, New York,1955

I knew Richard Kelly! He was a very special person to me at the start of my career at, what now seems to me, to have been a very early age. I was an awestruck boy. He was an iconic figure to me who he referred to as “the kid,” and rightly so. His work was an inspiration and he was a model for what I had dreams of becoming – a lighting designer that would some day leave a stamp on lighting design – my chosen profession. It is a great honor to receive an award that bears his name. The exposure to Mr. Kelly was a true educational experience.

My mentor, Professor Stanley R. McCandless, used to say, "You remain only a practitioner, and do not become a true professional, unless you are an educator.“ I firmly believe that education is the key to making lighting design a recognized and thriving profession. It is interesting to see how important education became to me – it became a particular passion of mine. I have

worked with the same fervor to advance lighting education as I did my design practice. If I am to have a legacy in lighting – I think education will be where the mark has been made.

Lighting education flourished in the early 1900’s. But during the 1940’s lighting education went into obscurity. In this 40 year cyclic pattern, lighting education began to grow again in the 1980’s. Here we are in the middle of the next 40 year lighting education cycle. What would I like to see occur?

The following is a short list of four elements of a good lighting education curriculum:First we must teach people in lighting to see. For if you can’t see, how will you know how to create what it is you wish to see? When it becomes what you wish to see, it becomes perception. There is a huge difference between to see and to perceive. To see is universal, to perceive is individual to each person within their personal experience and culture.

Second, we must inspire creativity – creativity is simply the realization there is little benefit in doing things the way they have always been done. Following a recommended practice is not creative; it is a thought – free exercise.

Third, we must teach people to think outside the box. In order to think “outside the box” you first have to know what’s in it. So a complete mastery of the science and technical aspects of the art of lighting is a fundamental requirement.

Finally, we must teach accountability – to be accountable to clients for a creative solution to

Howard M. BrandstonAfter founding the lighting design practise of Brandston Partnership Inc. in 1966, Howard Brandston has more than forty years experience in lighting design, engineering and electronics.

www.concerninglight.com

fit their needs, not some standard. Why else were we hired?

What a waste my life would be if I did not in some way follow the model of Richard Kelly and the example set by Stanley McCandless, to send some welleducated people into the profession to reshape it, carry it on and grow it, through leadership and education, for the next generations to come. I hope that all of you in the audience will also take it upon yourselves to support lighting education; as a sponsor, contributing to a scholarship fund such as the Richard Kelly Fund; or as a teacher, working within your local schools and IES section, as a mentor to a deserving lighting intern. Education is a continuous process; it is our obligation to see that the lighting profession replenishes itself with bright new talent, educated, ready, and able to assume the mantle of professional responsibility. I know Richard would love that.

The Four Seasons RestaurantNew York, New York, 1957 – 1958Architect, Philip Johnson Associates


Philip Johnson's Glass HouseNew Canaan, Connecticut, 194849 Architect: Philip Johnson

Seagram BuildingNew York, New York, 1957Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, ArchitectsPhotos: Ezra StollerEzra Stoller © ESTO

New York State TheaterLincoln Center for the Performing ArtsNew York, New York,1965Architect: Philip JohnsonPhoto: Ezra StollerEzra Stoller © ESTO

At the moment I decided to embark on a career in architectural lighting, Richard Kelly was nearing the end of his. Naively, I rang his office doorbell to ask for a job, spoke briefly with Kelly, left off a resume, and that was the end of it.

As brief as our personal contact was, the influence of Richard Kelly on my work was enormous in two ways;

First, to say that Richard Kelly “created” modern architectural lighting and the idea of a professional design practice that enabled it to be realized, is to say that Kelly is the spiritual “father” of what has now become a worldwide endeavor for many hundreds of lighting designers.

In respect of the fact that Kelly came of age at the same time as a generation of great architects he was lucky; in respect of the fact that he could make architecture sing with light was a great and lasting gift that influences me and my colleagues to this day.

Second, Kelly was fortunate in having a young Edison Price as a willing coconspirator in realizing new ideas about lighting and the fittings that enable it. Together they invented the techniques of modern architectural lighting (much of it available through Erco today). I was

Paul MarantzWith training in architecture, architectural history, and industrial design as well as in lighting, Mr. Marantz brings a multidisciplinary background to architectural lighting. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College with graduate work at Case/ Western Reserve University and Brooklyn

fortunate to be, similarly, a coconspirator with Price in his later years (his mind never aged).

Recently my firm was happy to collaborate in the restoration of Louis Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery, an early Kelly/Price coproduction. There was no question about what needed to be done. Kahn’s vision, brought to life by Kelly, was refreshed but not altered. Anything else would have been a sacrilege.

College. As cofounder of Fisher Marantz Stone in1971 he is today Consulting Design Principal of this New Yorkbased lighting design consultancy. His lighting designs have received numerous awards and citations.

www.fmsp.com


1072

0520

0004

41AO

0148

1072

0520

0004

41AO

0148 E 1072052000

0441AO0148230-240V~50-60Hz

N10348J T i CDALI

Light Server 64+The user-friendly ERCO solution for large DALI installations. By using up to 12 networked Light Server 64+ units, the address capacity of 64 addresses per DALI segment can be multiplied to a maximum of 768 addresses.

The networkable Light Server 64+DALI protocol limits the number of addresses in a conventional DALI system to 64. ERCO Light System DALI goes beyond this limit with the Light Server 64+, which can be networked with other Light Servers of the same type through an Ethernet interface. The Light Server 64 can handle up to 64 DALI addresses allowing it to cope with many typical smaller lighting con-trol applications. Larger installations with over 64 addresses can be implemented by network-ing up to twelve Light Server 64+ units via the integrated Ethernet interfaces. This allows up to 768 DALI addresses to be managed, plus the number of connectable Light Changers is also multiplied accordingly. It is important to note that every Light Server 64+ controls a separate DALI line, which still remains restricted to a max-imum of 64 addresses. This must be considered when routing the cables, i.e. by ensuring that practical room segments or luminaire groups with up to 64 DALI addresses are connected to one Light Server each.

Light Clients with Luminaire IDThe convenience of plug-and-play connectiv-ity when commissioning via individually coded Light Clients is fully retained in a networked Light System DALI despite its considerably larger number of DALI addresses. When the view is unrestricted, the mounting locations of Light Clients are identified simply by using the “flash” option in the Light Studio software. However, this is not always possible for larger Light System DALI networks. Consequently, all Light Clients now have an additional sticker with a luminaire ID. This individual luminaire ID allows each Light Client to be identified during commissioning and in the lighting control soft-ware. The sticker can be removed by the installer and transferred to the appropriate place on the reflected ceiling plan drawing to show the mounting location of each Light Client. In addi-tion to the convenience of plug-and-play, the ERCO concept of unique luminaire identification also ensures a reliable commissioning process due to the uniform documentation on the plan, on the product and in the software.

Light Server 64+max. 12

DALI

Hub/Switch

Ethernet

120V-240V50-60Hz

Step 2The sticker is transferred to the reflected ceiling plan drawing to show the exact mounting location of each Light Client.

Step 3The luminaire ID is also stored in the control gear of each Light Client. It is displayed in the Light Studio software in its own dedicated column in the Client list.

Data summary - Up to 12 Light Server 64+ units- Up to 64 DALI addresses per server- Overall length: up to 12 x 64 = 768 addresses- 12 x 31 Light Changers - 12 x 4 push-button groups- 1024 light scenes- 64 zones

Using the luminaire ID, the mounting location of an ERCO Light Client can be recorded on the drawing with ease and certainty, and then later identified on the PC.

Since the control gear is supplied ex-works programmed with the lumi-naire ID, the Light Studio software can automati-cally recognise it and list it on the monitor screen in its own dedicated column. It is then an easy matter for the designer to arrange the luminaire symbols as required on the Stage in Light Studio. An additional list for Light Changers and push-buttons shows the Light Servers with which they are connected.

Hub/SwitchTwo Light Server 64+ units can be directly connected together with a cat-5 network cable. To network more than two units, simply use an off-the-shelf Ethernet hub/switch.

Step 1Once the Light Client is installed, the sticker with article identification and additional luminaire ID is removed.

For further information, see our flyer on the new Light Server 64+. Please ask your local ERCO light-ing consultant for a copy: www.erco.com/contact

Or download the Flyer as a PDF from the ERCO Light Scout: www.erco.com/download


Seeing and perceiving: the effects of per-ception in the practice of lighting designSome people have perfect pitch and can instantly recognise an A note. No similar phe-nomenon is known for light; the eye’s vision is always relative – the impression of brightness of an illuminated wall greatly depends on the surroundings. A wall illuminated with 100lx can appear very bright in a dark environment, whereas an area with the same illuminance in a foyer flooded with daylight can seem very dim. Similarly, the human eye never interprets light colours in absolute terms either. If we remain in a given location, the eye will adjust to a constant perception of colour. As a result, if no reference surface is present, both warm-white or daylight white light will appear as neutral white light. Therefore, when choosing the appropriate illu-minance or light colour in a real-life situation, the neighbouring areas and spaces should also be included and any varying ambient brightness levels considered.

In addition to the adaptation to both bright-ness and colour, an important role in lighting design is also played by the shape and bright-ness contrasts of light patterns. Light patterns can be perceived as spatial partitioning, as an element for focussing the vision or as a decora-tive feature. It is the designer’s job to harmonise the patterns of light with the architecture so that they are not too dominating and there-fore detrimental. By choosing the appropriate lighting technology, the designers can decide to what extent they want to work with strik-ing light patterns, such as beams of light on surfaces, or whether they prefer to emphasise the uniformity of the architectural elements by lighting a surface evenly. Designers can even create a hierarchy of perception by using light patterns with different illuminance levels, i.e. using light to accentuate important objects while allowing unimportant items to recede into the darkness. Spaces can be divided into zones of differing importance. The main thing here is to be conscious of how perceptible the con-trast ratios are: whereas a brightness contrast between object and surroundings of 1:2 can barely be registered, a ratio of 1:5 can build up a subtle contrast and 1:10 can produce a clear emphasis – this background knowledge makes it clear why it is often good practice to build up a lighting concept starting from the lowest pos-sible ambient lighting level.

Thomas Schielke

The contrast between cooler and warmer colours of light creates permanent tension within the room. In fact, coloured light by contrast is virtu-ally perceived as neutral after a short while.

The eye can only process luminance contrasts to a certain extent. The photo-receptor system adapts itself to the surround-ings, so the impression of brightness is always relative.

Focus Double focus

Beams of light are per-ceived as independent patterns. Their form and position on the wall can visually divide the room and give it structure.

The accent light on the objects allows the room to recede into the back-ground. In this way, the lighting can help to focus our attention.

Conversely, uniform wall-washing encourages us to perceive the wall surfaces as a uniform architectural element.

Seeing and perceiving: the theory of perceptionMany lighting effects can only be understood and effectively controlled against the back-ground of perception psychology. Just a few aspects of the theory of perception can be touched on here; for a more comprehensive and in-depth treatment, please see the “Guide” area of the Light Scout (www.erco.com).

We perceive our visual environment using our visual organs. These include not only the eye and the optic nerve but also the parts of our brain which are actively involved in processing and interpreting images. The perception of bright-ness is primarily regulated by the eye. Since the eye does not cover the entire spectrum of visible luminance levels with the same photoreceptor cells, it adapts for a particular section of this spectrum in each case. Objects whose luminance is too high for a certain state of adaptation will dazzle and appear too bright. The impression of brightness of an illuminated wall will therefore depend on the eye’s state of adaptation, i.e. whether it had previously adjusted to a bright or dark situation.

When interpreting patterns of light, our perception of constancy comes into play. Light patterns, i.e. differences in brightness levels on objects, can have different causes: the type of lighting, the shape of the object or its surface characteristics. The interpretation as to which aspect applies is made in the perception process by our eye and brain, largely from previously stored experience. The Basics chapter of the Guide contains a section on Constancy explain-ing how uneven light patterns can lead to con- fusing lighting situations, e.g. if beams of light are positioned with no relation to the architec-ture or objects. In the following section about perception of gestalt, the Guide explains how our perception understands certain patterns as objects. The examples also show how the luminaire arrangement can alter the spatial impression.

The effect of colours can be partly explained by the eye’s cone and rod photoreceptor cells, e.g. how varying colour intensity is attributable to the different colour sensitivity of the red, green and blue rod and cone cells. Conversely, painter and art theorist Johannes Itten accounts for colour contrasts as a subjective phenomenon in his colour theory. The Guide explains the physiological side in the Basics chapter, while the Designing with light chapter illustrates the aspect of colour contrasts with interactive examples.

Thomas Schielke

The laws of gestalt are not only applicable to the position of the beam but also to the luminaire layout: the gestalt law of proximity understands luminaires as pairs.

For further information on the topic of Seeing and perception, please refer to the Basics chapter in the Guide.

www.erco.com/guide

The position of the beam will determine whether the beam is perceived as supportive or distracting. Beams of light that do not correspond to the geom-etry of the image area are perceived as distracting, independent patterns.

Cornea

LensIris

Fovea

Optic nerve


Panoramic glass fronts are the dream of many a private home owner. The living area seems to open up and extend to the horizon – or at least to the plot’s boundary. The unfortunate fact that the transparent panes of glass rap-idly turn into a one-way mirror with the onset of darkness was something that even Phillip Johnson had to concede with his self-designed experimental home, the “Glass House". So he commissioned the pioneer of lighting design, Richard Kelly, to solve this problem. More about Kelly elsewhere in this Lichtbericht, but here’s his trick in brief: he avoided any dazzling light sources in the interior of the house and then scenically lit the view outside by illuminating the lawn and shrubbery.

The latter is unfortunately not a viable option with this villa because the view through its glass front actually does extend to the horizon, stretching, unhindered, out across the cliffs, rocky beach and the Mediterranean. Yet the architect Lord Norman Foster found a technical solution even for this. As if by magic, the facade – which is 18 tons of glass and steel don’t forget – glides to one side under electric power at the touch of a button. This makes reflection a thing of the past. The mild climate of the Côte d‘Azur makes it possible to implement the ultimate fusion of indoor and outdoor areas. The natural

A villa sets sailWelcome to the captain’s bridge: the seaward orientation is the theme of this villa built by Lord Norman Foster in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

light sources of the moon and stars, coupled maybe with some light from a passing yacht, is the only illumination for this particular view.

While making use of references to the mari-time theme of the yacht, Foster follows classical modernism, proponents of which, Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray, also built holiday homes on the picturesque coast of Cap Ferrat. It is not just the stainless steel railings and the ubiquitous white finish that are reminiscent of a luxury ship, but also and especially, the spectacular solution for solar protection. Vaulting over the entire build-ing, which is a terraced design on the escarp-ment, are two huge steel arcs between which steel cables are spanned. Stretched across these cables are textile sails acting as a sunshade – in naval white of course. An interesting point worth mentioning is that this villa is, strictly speaking, a conversion, as there have not been any vacant plots of land in this highly desirable location for a long while and strict preservation orders are in force. On the other hand however, hardly anything can be recognized of the origi-nal house – its inimitable cool and debonair ele-gance has now become a typical Foster design.

Huge sails are spanned between two giant steel arcs. Under this sunshade the villa nestles into the cliffs.

Debonair luxury: four-storey living space with an open view of the Mediterranean can be perfectly unpretentious – if the architect’s name is Foster. Concentrated lighting, restricted to just a few accents with Jilly spotlights for low-voltage halogen lamps, decisively contributes to the comfort.


The villa’s furnishings are reduced to the bare essentials: with designs from the architect or design classics like this chaise longue by Charles Eames.

In such an environment characterised by under-stated technical aesthet-ics, accents such as the open fire or candlelight on the dinner table are more pronounced. The rear wall of the living room features a “mud painting" by Richard Long.

The glass banisters are typically Foster – the stainless steel staircase railings on the other hand allude to the steamship look that has character-ised the appearance of modern architecture since Le Corbusier.

The view from the mas-ter’s workplace can com-pete with the captain’s bridge of an ocean liner – except that this interior has more style.

The pool is located on the roof, where it contributes to cooling the whole building in the heat of the summer.

Access to the building’s many levels can be gained quickly via a glazed lift or, more adventurously, via the zigzagged steel stairway.

Optec wallwashers mounted on tracks along the bookshelf-lined side walls provide subdued vertical illumination, giv-ing a feel for the dimen-sions of the living space and producing a pleasant ambient brightness.

Architect: Foster & Partners, LondonPhotographer: Richard Bryant / arcaid.co.uk


2006 was the Year of Rembrandt. The 400th anniversary of the birth of the artistic genius was celebrated with a veritable cavalcade of events and exhibitions. One definite highlight had to be the great Berlin exhibition, created in cooperation with Het Rembrandthuis, Amster-dam, and the Rembrandt Research Project.

Even in non-anniversary years, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) are in the fortunate position of having one of the most important collections of Rembrandt’s works. The curators brought together 82 paintings for the exhibition, including loans from museums and private collections from all around the world. The exhibition focussed on Rembrandt’s post-1642 creative crisis and on his restless quest for a new style in the early 1650s. Despite his popu-larity, much about Rembrandt and his biography remains an enigma. Ever-changing opinions about which works are to be attributed to the artist keep art historians on their toes, although the sheer numbers of students and assistants in Rembrandt’s workshop means that the author-ship of some of his works will forever remain in the dark. In fact, the exhibition even uses this as a theme: its crowning conclusion is an illustri-ous symposium on the latest developments in research on Rembrandt.

In contrast with the Kulturforum’s paral-lel exhibition of drawings and prints from the Dutch master, known as the “Rembrandt-Block”, the gallery’s hall for rotating exhibitions was darkened and provided with installations for the occasion by the stage designer and exhibi-tion architect Hansjörg Hartung. Coloured wall surfaces in dark green and red brought a touch of Baroque to Berlin. When it came to the light-ing, the exhibition designers saw that it was important to illuminate these coloured walls softly and uniformly as a background and to add brightness to the paintings themselves with exactly placed spotlights in as neutral white as possible. The lighting engineers achieved this using Optec spotlights and wallwashers for low-voltage halogen lamps on 3-circuit track. The spotlights were fitted with honeycomb anti-dazzle screen accessories for maximum glare protection and with conversion filters for correcting the colour temperature. The effort and attention invested in the lighting resulted in optimum visual conditions and an emotive atmosphere of light and dark – an atmosphere that allowed over 200,000 visitors to immerse themselves in the world of Rembrandt.

Rembrandt: the quest of a geniusAn exhibition at Berlin’s Kulturforum Gallery from 4 August to 5 November 2006.

To achieve optimum viewing conditions, the designers have care-fully balanced out the brightness contrast between coloured walls and accentuated paint-ings – a task helped by the Optec spotlights, which can be individually dimmed by transformer-mounted potentiometers. Conversion filters even out the shift in colour

Mysterious Rembrandt: even the young visitors cannot escape the fasci-nation that the paintings themselves emit down through the centuries

– like the “Girl in a picture frame” from 1641, a loan from the Royal Castle of Warsaw.

Powerful, dark colours and an emotive interac-tion of light and dark: the exhibition lighting uses modern means to inter-pret the lighting moods so typical of Rembrandt’s work.

Exhibition design and lighting design: Hansjörg Hartung, BerlinStaatliche Museen zu BerlinPhotos: Sabine Wenzel, Berlin

www.smb.museum

temperature of the dimmed halogen lamps into warm-tones so that the illumination of the paintings appears excep-tionally neutral and ana-lytical. The high ceilings allow an optimum angle of incidence of approx 30° for the accentuating beams.


If you’re looking amongst vases for a true classic of the Modern Age, it would probably have to be the Savoy Vase by the architect Alvar Aalto. The nice thing about it is that not only is it on display in all the world’s important design museums, but, since its launch in 1937, it has also been an immensely popular everyday object, representing the Scandinavian feel for life in thousands of households. Its unpreten-tious, simple organic form is also highly func-tional and fulfils its task perfectly, i.e. displaying cut flowers to their best advantage. At ERCO, Aalto’s vase has, for many years now, been part of the canon of decorative objects allowed in the corporate design manual – in opal white, of course, so as to keep within the reduced corporate colour scheme.

Behind the Savoy Vase is a company that encompasses much more than just this one bestseller: the Finnish Iittala Gruppe. It defines itself as the “Scandinavian design company“ and, with various brands, covers the entire range of household goods, such as glass, porcelain,

Iittala Flagship Store, AmsterdamWhen cool Scandinavians get emotional it might have something to do with the Northern Lights: scenographic lighting with Light System DALI lends dramatic qualities to the Iittala store.

The “Northern Lights” are a backlit glass wall. Equipped with DALI-com-patible fluorescent inserts with lamps in red, green and blue, the installation allows any colour of light or brightness level to be conveniently set via the Light System DALI.

Optimum lighting for reflective objects such as glasses, utensils and porcelain: diffuse back-lighting combined with accent light from spotlights which adds highlights and correctly

kitchen utensils and cooking implements. The most well known of these beyond Scandinavia must surely be Iittala itself, for glass and crock-ery, and Boda Nova for utensils and metal goods; although the other companies within the group are also strong providers with a long-tradition in their home markets. In economic terms, Iittala positions itself distinctly within the design qual-ity sector. As a result, the corporate group can look back on solid growth over the last ten years and in 2006 reported a respectable turnover of EUR 190M. Against this background, Iittala is now stepping up its global expansion – with measures including the opening of brand-name stores in major international cities. The company sees particular growth potential in this sales market and has therefore set itself high targets: Iittala shops are destined to be the most exciting and at the same time the most efficient within the branch.

Exactly how this is to be implemented in the future is shown by the Finns in their flag-ship store at Leidsestraat 30 in Amsterdam.

ERCO Light Clients, such as the Optec spotlights on DALI track, work with the Light System DALI using “plug and play” connectivity, but even DALI-compatible compo-nents from other manu-facturers, like the tables and shelves fitted with fluorescent lamps, can be seamlessly integrated into the system.

Dark walls and ceilings concentrate the attention on the bright merchan-dising shelves and display tables. The shimmering lighting installation on the rear wall acts as a magical eye-catcher.

The Dutch interior designers Carlijn Kriekaard and John Maatman who have been jointly running “Bearandbunny” design offices since 2002 designed this in cooperation with littala’s in house retail experts. Some elements of the classic-modern look of the existing Iittala stores in Scandinavia have been taken over, but the young designers from Amsterdam were also given the chance to make their own fresh and contemporary contribution.

The store offers the attractive products a neutral stage with great dramatic potential. However, this emotional element is not cre-ated by using expressive fixtures and fittings – the shelving and display tables are simple, rectangular and black or white – but by using light. Everything is aimed at optimally show-casing the articles made of glass, porcelain and stainless steel. Thus, the tables and shelves are diffusely backlit. The necessary accent light-ing with brilliant directed light is provided by DALI-compatible Optec spotlights with black housings on DALI track, also in black. Together

with the black-painted ceilings and walls, the technology and the spatial borders are practi-cally blanked out of our perception so that all attention is diverted to the presentation of the goods. The highlight however, is a large-format lighting installation on the room’s rear wall that attracts attention even from outside through the panoramic glass front. The “Northern Lights” are a giant luminous case where light colour can be adjusted as desired via ERCO’s Light System DALI. A superimposed grid containing differently coloured drinking glasses from the Iittala collection acting as “colour pixels” addi-tionally influences its appearance. Thus product, presentation and lighting all merge into one overall scenographic concept with stunning aesthetics.

Iittala Flagship Store, Amsterdam.Architect: Bearandbunny, Amsterdam.Lighting design: Iittala, Otto Freijser (Netherlands), Juha Vesamäki (Finland).Photos: Dirk VogelDirk Vogel

www.iittala.com/amsterdam

represents colours and surfaces. Thanks to net-working with the Light System DALI, all compo-nents can be re-balanced at any time to serve the scenographic concept.


“Ascot is so exclusive that it is the only race-course in the world where the horses own the people.”

When renowned American columnist, Art Buchwald, wrote his satire, ‘I chose caviar – ordeal at Ascot’ in 1957, the racecourse was deemed a place where only the upper classes were allowed to frequent. Fifty years on and Ascot breaches social and economic divisions. It is a place where the great and the good of society happily blend with a ‘common man’, enjoying the special hospitality while cheering on their equine heroes with mutual gusto.

Owned by the Crown and nestling in the beautiful county of Berkshire, Ascot racecourse, founded in 1711, annually hosts 26 top-level meetings. In June, Royal Ascot, held over five days, is attended by more than 300,000 race-goers and is one of the major events in the British sporting calendar.

The striking centrepiece of the 2006 develop-ment is the 6-storey grandstand designed by

HOK Sport. Its lightweight parasol roof struc-ture consisting of 54 roof trusses has been constructed to compliment the town’s natural avenue of trees. An arc like curvature of the roof and nearly 10,000 square metres of glass permit a significant amount of daylight to pass through, offering spectators a superb and unrestricted view of both racecourse and the beautiful surrounds of Windsor Great Park.

Over 1,000 luminaires from ERCO, including Lightcast Downlights, Focal Floods and Optec Spotlights are installed throughout the Ascot complex contributing to a superb balance of natural and artificial light.

In September 2004, Ascot Racecourse closed for major redevelopment. The £200 million project, completed in June 2006, is one of the most extensive of its type ever witnessed in Europe.

Ascot Architect: HOK SportLighting Design: Buro HappoldPhotography: Rudi Meisel

www.ascot.co.uk

Galleria racegoers study-ing the odds on glare free screens, thanks to hundreds of Lightcast downlights for metal halide lamps installed in the ceiling above.

Focal Flood projectors, oriented down, offer support illuminance to circulation areas. The Galleria incorporates 24 sets of escalators, 40 public bridges and 20 staircases including 6 escape stairwells.

Installed along public walkways, Lightcast Directional luminaires, for metal halide lamps and fitted with sculp-ture lenses ensure that any light spill, over the balconies, is kept to the absolute minimum.

Her Majesty the Queen reopened Ascot Race-course on 20th June 2006. This ambitious redevelop-ment project took just 20 months to complete, was delivered both on time and within budget.

After football, horserac-ing is the most popular spectator sport in Great Britain and the Country places over £10 billion worth of bets each year. The Government collects £300 million in tax reve-nues and the bookmakers profit by over £1 billion.

In 2006, 6 million race-goers passed through the turnstiles at 59 race-courses. Whether a blood stock dealer or owner, a professional gambler or a humble once a year punter, everyone loves a day at the races.


Backlights

Monograph: Kiessler + PartnerThe book documents over 40 years of work by this Munich-based architectural design office. Amongst many other buildings, Kiessler + Partners also designed the Technical Centre for ERCO in 1989.

Kiessler + Partner ArchitektenKiessler, Uwe (Publ.), Birkhäuser, 2006,ISBN: 978-3-7643-7627-7

Switched on London(8–16 February 2007) One of the projects for this lighting festival along the Thames was a new interpretation of the London City Hall by Foster & Partners. The lighting designers specifically illu-minated individual elements of the building in bold colours. The power consumed equated to less than that of a domestic hairdryer!

Lighting design: Indigo Light Planning, Londonwww.switchedonlondon.co.uk

Monograph: Otl AicherERCO takes great pride in the fact that it is one of the few companies that have remained faithful to and further devel-oped the artistic style of the designer Otl Aicher. It is therefore pleasing to see that Phaidon, the well-known New York publisher, is now present-ing a comprehensive, deep and excellently designed mono-graph on Aicher, giving a wider audience a closer understand-ing of just how contemporary his design approaches are. A must-have for every design library. Rathgeb, Markus: Otl Aicher (monograph), Phaidon Press, 2006, ISBN 0714843962

Richard Kelly: Selected Works, Stockholm ERCO jointly presents this touring exhibition together with the PLDA (Professional Lighting Designers Association) for the first time ever in Europe. First stop was our Stock-holm showroom from the 9th of February to the 2nd of March 2007. The exhibition includes a total of 37 framed works and photo boards with original drawings, prints and photographs from the Richard Kelly archive. It provides an exemplary illustration of both the philosophy of the famous American lighting designer/architect and also his visionary approach to architec-tural lighting, daylight usage and luminaire design. For information on the current venue, please see the Light Scout at: www.erco.com.

Further venues:Berlin (16.03.–01.04.2007)Paris (26.04.–10.05.2007)Barcelona (14.06.–30.06.2007)Amsterdam (13.09.–05.10.2007) London (25.10.–16.11.2007)Vienna (29.11.–16.12.2007)

Spectacular CityNRW-Forum, Düsseldorf(27 January 2007- 6 May 2007) The exhibition put together by Rotterdam’s NAI (Netherlands Architectural Institute) showed the highly varied strategies with which contemporary photographers approach the phenomenon of the “city” – ranging from a documen-tary style shot to artistic montage – all optimally presented under the unerring light of ERCO.

www.nrw-forum.de

Tempo Shop, Berlin(15 Nov 2006 –10 Jan 2007) –10 Jan 2007)–10 Jan 2007) The “Tempo” publication charac-terised a new style of magazine in Germany in the years from 1986 to 1996. In parallel with a unique special edition ten years after the paper was discontinued, a tempo-rary shop on Berlin’s Chaussee-straße presented devotional objects bearing the Tempo logo. The shop’s opening became a get-together for Berlin’s artistic and journalistic communities.

Architect: Susanne Raupach, Berlinwww.tempo.de

Architects and lighting designers met in the ERCO Showroom Stock-holm for a private view-ing. Welcoming speeches were given by Jan Ejhed, the outgoing president of ELDA+ (PLDA), right, and Kenneth Petersson, head of ERCO Nordic Countries.

Architectural icons in a different light: ERCO varychrome luminaires with LED technology, con-trolled by Light System DALI, lit up the City Hall with a splash of colour.

An attractive contrast to the improvised furnish-ings made of stacked newspapers was the pro-fessional lighting with Parscan spotlights on Hitrac tracks.

The exhibition covered works from internation-ally famous artists such as Andreas Gursky (below), Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Olivo Barbieri and many others.

E ERCO Leuchten GmbHPostfach 24 6058505 LüdenscheidGermanyTel.: +49 2351 551 0Fax: +49 2351 551 [email protected]

“What’s so provincial about that?” asked an ERCO publication back in 1984. Today, buildings such as the new fire station in Altena-Rosmart, designed by KKW Architekten of Altena, show that architecture with attitude and ambition is not only thriving in Austria’s Vorarlberg or Holland‘s Limburg but also in the German "province“, in Sauerland. As befits such a striking building, night time illumination is now pro-vided for by lighting instruments from ERCO’s outdoor product range.

en erco architecture light

Documents