Columns of Light: Architecture of the Immaterial

In: Dialectics of Space and Place across Virtual and Corporeal Topographies
Author:
Nazanin Khodadad
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This chapter examines the possibility that light - an illusory material – can, not only be experienced as a building material, thereby shifting the notion of architecture of the material to architecture of the immaterial, but can ultimately be defined and recognized as architecture of light. Light as architecture is a subtle yet significant distinction between the belief that light can visually and psychologically manipulate architectural space and architectural elements, versus the notion that artificially generated light, independent of traditional architectural elements, can be defined as architecture. There is no question that light creates ambience, and gives character to any given space, but can light - whether a single solitary beam of light controlled in a definitive manner or a multitude of lights flooding an area - perform as a wall, a column or perhaps, in an extreme scenario, a building? Building upon previous arguments highlighted in Dietrich Neumann’s Architecture of the Night, The Illuminated Building, this chapter expands on the opinion that the visual and psychological meaning of architecture and architectural space can be perceptually altered through the integration of artificial light but can also create and become the architectural space itself. This chapter juxtaposes the ‘Cathedral of Lights’ in 1933 Germany and the ‘Tribute in Light’, the aftermath response to 9/11, in which searchlights used in a similar fashion create and ultimately expand upon the idea that architecture of light is worthy of discussion.

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