Light and dark; ironically, at a time when light of all kinds is more abundant than ever before and means of manipulating it are ever more sophisticated, there is a general lack of imagination about illuminating buildings

Architectural Review, The, April, 2004

Never has humankind had more light. From transparent walls to almost universal provision of electric illumination, we can be bathed in light both day and night, so, because light is essential for life, we should be the happiest people that ever lived. No Roman emperor or Renaissance monarch had so much light as some of the poorest people have today. It is through light that we mainly experience the sensations of our bodies in space. Though the senses of touch and hearing, scent (to a lesser degree) and even (in extremis) taste are helpful in orientating ourselves three dimensionally, sight (for those blessed to have it) is quite the most important sense in understanding our relationship to the physical world. Without light, form and space have little meaning to most of us.

Corbusier said that 'Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light'. (1) He was of course a young and rather wild polemicist when he made the remark in 1923, one that could dismiss a Gothic cathedral as 'not a plastic work; it is a drama; a fight against the force of gravity, which is a sensation of a sentimental nature', (2) --the time-honed argument of the neo-Classicist against the Gothic. The architect of Ronchamps changed his mind as he grew up and began to be a master of space as well as form. But he rarely seemed satisfactorily to grasp the incredibly complex process of introducing natural light into his interior spaces (for instance, he often had serious problems with glare). Nor was he very thoughtful about how electric lighting could be used creatively.

The sounds of space

Louis Kahn was much more sensitive about light and space. 'How', he asked, 'can anyone imagine a building of spaces not seen in natural light? Schools are being built [in 1970] with little or no natural light, supposedly to save on maintenance costs and to ensure teachers of their pupils' undivided attention. The most wonderful aspects of the indoors are the moods that light gives to space. The electric bulb fights the sun. (3) Schools may be more permeable by daylight these days, but the mighty floor plates of the great office buildings of North American and Asia create similar conditions for workers who were educated in the schools of which Kahn was so critical.

Of course in the end, he understood how to manipulate electric and sunlight better than almost anyone else in the twentieth century (apart perhaps from Aalto). Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum at Fort Worth has a masterly combination of natural and artificial light, modulated by the building, and perfectly adjusted to the pictures it houses; it has been one of the most influential patterns for gallery lighting in the last four decades.

Kahn's imagination and sensitivity were wonderful. 'I feel fusion of the senses', he said, 'To hear a sound is to see its space. Space has tonality, and I imagine myself composing a space, lofty, vaulted or under a dome, attributing to it a sound character alternating with the tones of the space, narrow and high, with graduating silver, light to darkness. The spaces of architecture in their light make me want to compose a kind of music, imagining a truth from the sense of a fusion of the disciplines and their orders'. (4) (Does anyone teach like that anymore? And, if they do, does anyone listen?)

Kahn believed that great architecture is formed from continuous interaction of structure and light. For him, shade was as important as daylight: 'Structure is the maker of light. A column and a column bring light between them. It is darkness-light, darkness-light, darkness-light, darkness-light'. (5) And he was fascinated by the way in which daylight changes constantly. 'Even a room which must be dark needs a crack of light to know how dark it is. But architects in planning rooms today have forgotten their faith in natural light. Depending on the touch of a finger to a switch, they are satisfied with static light and forget the endlessly changing qualities of natural light, in which a room is a different room every second of the day.' (6)

Writing in the early 1930s, the Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki brought another but similar sensibility to the nature of light and darkness in buildings when he talked about 'the magic of shadows' in traditional Japanese architecture. 'Our ancestors ... by cutting off the light ... imparted to the world of shadows ... a quality of mystery and depth superior to any wall painting or ornament.' (7) Tanizaki's sensitivity was extremely subtle in ways that are practically incomprehensible to most westerners (and perhaps to most present-day Japanese too). 'Sometimes a superb piece of black laquer-ware, decorated perhaps with flecks of silver and gold a box or ... a set of shelves--will seem to me unsettlingly garish and altogether vulgar. But render pitch black the void in which they stand, and light them not with the rays of the sun or electricity but rather a single lantern or candle: suddenly those garish objects turn somber, refined, dignified.' (8) The lavish use of gold in Japanese temple interiors must, thought Tanizaki, have come from their builders' understanding of how 'it gleams forth out of the darkness and reflects the lamplight'. (9)