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DETAILS
Brandi’s lighting portfolio includes the lighting of buildings and public spaces such as the British Museum in London (top right), the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart (above), the façade of the town hall in Hamburg, the town centre in Bremen, the lighting masterplan for Rotterdam (above right), EXPO 2000 in Hanover and the International Airport Pudong, Phase II in Shanghai.
existing situation on site and in wider terms, the location in the city or in the landscape. Brandi also studies the character of the proposed architecture, and considers how the lighting will contribute to people’s enjoyment in the building and its surround- ings, the lighting’s affect on the building’s appeal, and whether the lighting is to be “representative, create a certain mood, define spaces or be functional”. Embracing shadows and incorporating areas of darkness is something Brandi has long been interested in. At Expo 2000 in Hanover, for which Brandi masterplanned the lighting, large areas of the site, includ- ing parks, were left dark at night. “There was only some subtle path lighting and a few islands of light,” she says. “The clients soon overcame their initial skepticism about the concept, when they saw that visitors actually liked these areas after the sensory overload at the Expo.”
Another large-scale project that Brandi worked on was the lighting masterplan for the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The municipal administration wanted to simplify the city’s lighting, and to make the place more attractive to tourists and high earners. Brandi worked on bringing visual cohesion to the city’s lighting, and “the great achievement,” she says, “was that we were able to integrate what we call functional lighting into the project, which was not intended at the outset. I managed to convince the municipality that functional light makes up a large part of a city’s ambi- ence. Of course, street lighting has to have
good colour rendition and the mounting heights certainly have an effect on atmo- sphere. There’s more to it than illuminating facades of outstanding buildings.” When designing lighting, something else she bears in mind is “less is better”, learned from Dieter Rams. “That also influenced me a lot,” she says. “As we have so many disturbing things around us, I very often think less is better!” In terms of lighting design “this means not the brightest is the best,” she says. Brandi recalls an LED light column next to Hamburg’s town hall. The structure “outshone everything else,” she says. “The column’s theme was Hamburg as the European Green Capital 2011 - a complete joke!”
As for the industrial designer’s other prin- ciples, Brandi thinks that two in particular can be applied to lighting design. “First, a good design tells the truth!” she says. “In lighting design we find situations where ugly spaces or buildings are converted to superfi- cially beautiful spaces.”
That the work should be sustainable is another belief Rams espoused. “Lighting de- sign,” says Brandi, “has to be sustainable, and I think the most sustainable is daylight which is inconspicuous, traditional and inno- vative at the same time.”
Over the years, Brandi has designed the lighting for hundreds of built projects, and next year she starts teaching the next generation of lighting designers, influenc- ing the way forward for the lighting design profession.
www.ulrike-brandi.de
HIGHLIGHTS
Projects that you would like to change: The dome at the British Museum. Norman Foster used glass with far too high an iron content, which makes everything appear green. The green light falling into the exhibition spaces through interior windows meets daylight entering from the external facade, which looks pink because of the contrast. All in all, a disaster.
Projects you admire:
‘The Weather Project’ by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2003.
Projects you dislike:
The excessive use of colour in external lighting of high- rise buildings I find tedious.
Lighting Hero:
The moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Notable projects:
• Mercedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart (2006). • Masterplan Rotterdam, Netherlands (2010). • Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg (in progress). • Galerie De L’Evolution, Paris (1994). • Expo 2000, Hannover (2000).
Most memorable project:
Galerie De L’Evolution in Paris. The redevelopment of the Natural History Museum at the ‘Jardin des Plantes’ in Paris was preceded by a competition. The restoration of the museum was one of the ‘Grand Travaux’ projects. The exhibits in the large central hall, elephants and whales, were formerly illuminated by daylight through a glass roof. Ulrike Brandi Licht designed the ‘ciel actif’, a ceiling imitating the effects of the outside world and transferring it into the building. At the same time the exhibits were to be protected from the harmful effects of daylight. Some of the techniques, such as light directed into fibre glass or sheets of glass, are still up to date.
Current projects:
• Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg (Architects: Herzog and de Meuron).
• Memorial Church, Berlin (Architect: Egon Eiermann). • National Bank of Malaysia, Training centre, Kuala Lumpur (Architects: Serina Hiijas-Kasturi). • Satellite terminal, Munich Airport, (Architects: Koch and Partner).
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