part three
light in architecture from past to future

Light is a very important goal for contemporary architecture. Despite the fact that the 21st-century architect possesses more knowledge and more technical tools than ever before, they do not always achieve the desired result.

We are responsible for the cities of the future. We are responsible for the life and the natural resources of this small planet called Earth. But we have also been handed an important built heritage to look after.

How, then, can we balance these two goals? There is no hard-and-fast rule. There are no easy ways in which to manage light; there is a certain risk in placing such a changing and evanescent phenomenon as light at the very centre of architecture. And yet, it could be said that we can only properly speak of architecture as an art when we are able to turn light into an instrument that shapes and individualises space, returning it to the universality of cosmic laws.