Issue

Theme 1 Technical innovation and the architectural and urban project

From designers to architectural projects

The study of artificial lighting, explored within the framework of technical and aesthetic evolutions, shows that creators are often designers but are also, at times, architects. Situated on the border between design practices and architectural practices, these creations demonstrate how a global reflection has helped to forge the link between the source of light and its impact on the creation of high-quality and meaningful spaces.

Significant programmes

Some of the new architectural programmes inherited from the industrial era have facilitated the incorporation of technical modernity: large stores and hypermarkets, exhibition halls and theatres. The specific case of the private home has myriad examples of resourcefulness that go much further than the well-publicized examples of work by certain architects in the modern movement. Other programmes highlight the successful collaboration between architects and lighting engineers, particularly in museum layouts, for example.

Theme 2 Job sectors and professional networks

Professional specialisations

The emergence and development of certain professional categories, such as lighting engineers, after the Second World War, helped define the fields of activity involved in developing architectural work more clearly. Another area worth exploring is the role of visual artists and other artists who use lighting to enhance buildings. Lastly, with the emergence of lighting designers, a new type of skill has emerged that combines technical expertise with creativity. The succession of artificial lighting specialists has highlighted the rapidly changing role of architects in their projects’ lighting design processes, with, at times extremely profound and at times extremely superficial implications.

A network of competencies: training programmes, patents, companies, associations

This topic highlights the many different kinds of approach that help us to understand the links between architecture and electricity. Has the content of training programmes for the main players promoted or, on the contrary, confused the issue of how architectural space and the interweaving of its components is considered? Can we find conceptual links with the cinema or other artistic forms? To what extent were companies able to establish a lobby to consolidate their competencies, their authority in the field of construction, and their economic power, even during times of crisis?

Theme 3 The question of diffusion and reception

Vectors of communication and diffusion

The relaying of technical innovations by the professional press raises questions as to the types of supports and their permeability in the architectural milieu. What relationship do these specialised magazines have with architectural, decoration or arts magazines? At the same time, how important is the question of electricity in architectural magazines? In addition to identifying different types or categories of documents (revues, bulletins, advertising collateral, etc.), these studies will look at the way information disseminated outside the close-knit circle of technicians and specialised engineers is received. We also want to focus on new representational forms of nocturnal architecture, reinvented by electric lighting. What shape does this vision take in competition entries, and architectural sketches and drawings ?

Postulates and manifestos of modernity : representations, critical discourse, theoretical positions

Electric lighting and the icons of architectural modernity. How have representations of these structures highlighted, or not, the use of artificial lighting? Have the views expressed by architects been developed to shore up weaknesses in representations? By extension, has the link between electricity and architecture been described, promoted, and sublimated by novelists or photographers sensitive to the dialogue between well-designed lighting and the revelation of a building or a site? Lastly, on the sidelines of academic meetings, to what extent have trade fairs or ideal home exhibitions contributed to the democratisation of the way electric lighting representations on a daily basis?

International exchanges
While the USA showed an early interest in this new technology, how were American innovations received in the world context? Are there places, building and founding texts of a new approach to artificial lighting, particularly in large cities where night-time activity plays a major role in a city’s image and its international renown? What transfer of competencies have we seen and how are these diffusions made?

Issue

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