Call for papers - Luminous architecture in the 20th century (1907-1977)

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International symposium,
10-11-12 December 2009
Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture, Nantes, France

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Electric lighting has a history. Based on a series of experiments carried out during the last decades of the 19th century, electric lighting applications have developed alongside built environments throughout the 20th century. Considered as the outcome of an avant-garde technique that promised a radiant future, electric lighting has profoundly changed our night life. Architecture and cities were rapidly taken over by a plethora of lighting applications designed to embellish and improve the comfort of city dwellers, increase factory output and boost commercial activity. A source of beauty and pleasure, and the expression of a form of modernism combining artistic avant-garde and technical progress, electric lighting is primarily praised for its efficiency.

Lighting is effective because it significantly increases what is possible, creating opportunities for new spatial and temporal conquests, and providing unsuspected scope for enhancing buildings. New forms, new entertainment, new atmospheres, new kinds of advertising and new architectural programmes sprang out of the night to transform daily life. Customary behaviour and bearings altered dramatically. This breakthrough signalled the beginning of a new era marked by the advent of an art of lighting.

Concomitant with the arrival of a street art that has been developing ever since, the art of lighting is the result of research, invention and more or less well-mastered experiments crowned with success. The symposium sets out to explore the different stages that have punctuated 20th century architecture and urban history. We're looking to explore all aspects of project organisation and the beneficial effects of artificial lighting on our societies, from research work in laboratories to the reception of these lighting projects, as well as solutions to challenges concerning the penetration of lighting systems production.

The dates retained for the topic correspond firstly to the year that the first society of engineers dedicated to electric lighting issues was created (IES – Illuminating Engineering Society) and secondly to the year of the final meeting of Team X, an offshoot of the CIAM. These two events bear witness to the symposium’s ambition to provide a review of global experiences during a period when technology and architecture were going through profound changes. Papers dedicated to the transfer, exchange and adaptation of techniques and experiments between different countries are more than welcome. The list below presents just some of the topics that could be developed by researchers wishing to respond to this call for papers.