INTERVIEW
by
Vilma Barr
36
RAY GRENALD
Any projects you would like to change? eighth Street is the third phase of the University’s multi-phase campus
Certainly, with new technologies available, there are always new solu- lighting master plan. The current phase includes the lighting of Locust
tions, but the basic principles of lighting always remain. Walk and the illumination of The Furness Building and College Hall.
•
Liberty Bell Pavilion, Philadelphia
Lighting heroes The National Park Service moved the historic Liberty Bell into a new
I have admired two early practitioners of lighting design, Stanley building in 2004. Grenald was the principal in charge for the lighting
McCandless and Richard Kelly. McCandless applied his stage lighting team that designed the museum’s exterior and interior areas. The ob-
methods to the development of architectural lighting. Richard Kelly jective was to create a subdued environment that would offer viewers
was the first true architectural lighting designer. Additionally, I have a an appropriate setting in which to experience this symbol of the young
deep regard for Sonny Sonnenfeld. While involved primarily on the country’s successful fight for freedom.
entertainment side of the business, he was an early advocate of estab- • Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia
lishing architectural lighting design as a valued profession. Designed by architect Frank Furness, known for his flamboyant interi-
From an early historical perspective, there is Sir Isaac Newton, the ors, the building in the Center City area underwent extensive reno-
British physicist. He became so fascinated by the nature of light and vation for its one-hundredth birthday in 1976. Grenald designed a
vision that he risked blinding himself by staring at the sun. He poked series of lighting subsystems tailored to enhance the polychromed and
the sides of his eyeball with a small knife to assess how such activi- gold-leaf stenciled walls while also illuminating its collection of art.
ties would affect his sight. These experiments subsequently led him to The Academy is also an art school which had lacked consistent light-
formulate his revolutionary theories about the nature of the spectrum ing. Grenald implemented a lighting system that combined sources
and the refraction of light. that could be modulated depending on classroom use.
The interest in light and colour by the German poet, Johann Wolf- • The White House, West Wing, Washington, D.C.
gang Von Goethe, is evidenced by his 1795 work, Das Märchen. The The General Services Administration (GSA) in 1989 undertook the
opinions he expressed in this fairy tale are very much about “learning relighting of the Oval Office and retained Grenald to create the light-
to see”, as evidenced in this quote: ‘If you ask next, Who these other ing. He utilised the highest color CRI-rated lamps then-available, with
strange characters are, the Snake, the Will-o’-wisps, the Man with the equipment and control technology to provide flexibility needed for
Lamp? I will answer, in general and afar off, that Light must signify events occurring in the President’s formal office. An adjacent space is
human Insight, Cultivation, in one sort or other.’ used for informal morning prep meetings and features reduced light-
ing with concealed optically directed fixtures.
Memorable jobs
•
Carlsbad Caverns, Carlsbad, New Mexico Projects he likes:
The previously installed incandescent system was drying out the cave • Grand environmental spaces such as St Peter’s Square in Venice,
and was unflattering to visitors. Grenald redesigned the entire system, in which architectural scale and perspective are intertwined to en-
combining 14 different white light sources, from incandescent to hance the visual experience, and Venice itself where the character of
mercury, using lamp colour and distribution characteristics to render the architectural space and the people within it engages the eye.
the cave’s scale and depth. Lighting intensity was gradually reduced • Buildings by architects who understood light, visual scale and form,
so visitors could adapt to the Cavern’s lower levels. such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Frank Fur-
•
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. ness.
The Nation’s Main Street was relighted in a 20-year-project from • Carlsbad Caverns, because of the ability to create a naturalistic
1976 to 1996, sponsored by The Pennsylvania Avenue Development environment in which the human visual and psychological experience
Corp. Grenald, as the design team’s lighting consultant, reviewed the is expressed and enhanced completely through the use of light.
original 1964 Master Plan and redefined its scope to reflect his inter-
pretations that is was a significant, proud urban boulevard, and not Projects he dislikes:
as a dim place to be avoided after dark. A series of sub-systems was The relighting of Boat House Row in Philadelphia. The original lighting
created to carry out different functions. Pennsylvania Avenue is now a design intent which was to visually express the presence of the archi-
lively day and evening destination. tecture in keeping with a manner that was evocative of the historic
•
Boathouse Row, Philadelphia. time and place of the fin-de-siecle buildings and to create a sense of
Granald was influenced by turn-of-the- magic. The engineers who were appointed
twentieth-century lighting techniques of out-
President Ronald Reagan
to undertake the relighting became so
lining special purpose buildings with lights, inspects the lighting in infatuated with LED technology that they
such as those employed for the Chicago
the Oval Office at the
literally ‘missed the boat’.
White House
World’s Fair. In 1979, the century-old boat- Most any project that has engineered
houses along the Schuykill River assumed a lighting solutions in which the quantita-
new life as the 9,000 lights were turned on tive aspects of light are the only part of the
and the city had a new urban landmark, design process.
visible from the busy roads and highways
flanking the river on both sides. . Current projects
A 40,000-student women’s university in
Notable projects Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; a destination shop-
•
Locust Walk, University of Pennsylvania, ping mall in Istanbul, Turkey; and an Art-
Philadelphia Deco-theme residential complex in Dalian,
The Walk from the College Green to Thirty- China.
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