126 TECHNOLOGY / DEBATE
Figure 2: ‘Focal glow’ dominant. This photograph is offered as an example of the first of Richard Kelly’s “three elemental kinds of light effect”. Grand Union Station, Washington DC, USA. Lighting design: William M.C. Lam.
false.
APPEARANCE AS THE PURPOSE OF LIGHTING While the first illuminating engineering society had been founded in 1906 in New York, it was also in that part of the world that the first clear signs of an alternative faction emerged. In the years following World War II, leading architects were turn- ing to a new breed of lighting professionals. Often these were individuals who had ac- quired their skills as stage lighting designers and who found themselves able to establish close rapport with architects. The pioneers of this development are now legends; designers such as Richard Kelly, Abe Feder, and Stanley McCandless in the USA, and J.M. Waldram in the UK; and architects who sought to arouse emotional responses in people entering their buildings found that they were able to communicate readily with these designers. They responded to the architects’ expectations and had the ability to bring the magic of theatrical experiences into their creations. It was a symbiosis, and it is important to recognise that it was not that these designers raised the standard or quality of lighting design: they redefined its purpose. In 1952, Richard Kelly set out his design philosophy in a lecture delivered at a joint meeting of The American Institute of Archi- tects, the Society of Industrial Designers, and the Illuminating Engineering Society, in Cleveland, Ohio1
. He identified “three
elemental kinds of light effect”; these he described as: ambient luminescence, focal glow, and a play of brilliants. If any words could be said to have initiated the emergence of lighting design as a profes- sion distinct from illumination engineering, it surely has to be these. Up to his death in 1977, Kelly developed close, almost intimate, working relationships with several of the leading architects of the era and
‘ARCHITECTURAL’ LIGHTING DESIGNERS AND ‘BEST PRACTICE’ LIGHTING DESIGNERS When we look at attitudes towards light- ing standards, which are taken here to include the whole range of codes and recommended practice documents, the differences between these two types of practitioner become starkly apparent. The ‘architectural’ designers find it quite
Figure 3: ‘Ambient luminescence’ dominant; the second of Kelly’s kinds of light effect. Samslung Essel, Klosterneuberg, Austria. Architect: Heinz Tessar.
Figure 4: ‘Play of brilliants’ dominant; the third of Kelly’s kinds of light effect. Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, Franche-Comté, France. Architect: Le Corbusier.
was acknowledged to have made significant contributions to a number of major archi- tectural projects. It may be asked to what extent can the balance of these three kinds of light effect be applied for describing current lighting practice? Contemporary photographs of Kelly’s work mostly comprise rather grainy half tones, so I have reviewed my own col- lection of photographs for examples which, I think, characterise dominance of each of the effects, even though Kelly had no con- nection with any of them. They appear as Figures 2 to 4. Since that time there has been an uneasy relationship between lighting designers who see themselves to be involved in the pro- cess of architectural design, and those who design lighting installations to comply with all current standards and recommendations for best practice. For the remainder of this paper we will refer to these two types of lighting practitioner as ‘architectural’ designers and ‘best practice’ designers. No pejorative is intended by these terms: they are proposed only to describe two legitimate approaches to designing lighting installations. Of course there are other indi- viduals who plan lighting installations with- out ever rising to the standards of either of these categories, but that is another issue. It might seem that the difference between these two designer groups is irreconcilable, but the aim of this paper is to suggest an alternative outcome.
absurd that illuminance uniformity should be cited as a measure of lighting quality, and that in order to satisfy demands for energy efficiency they should be required to focus light output onto the horizontal workplane. Howard Brandston, who started in lighting as Stanley McCandless’s assistant, has produced his own rule, “Rules are a substitute for thinking”, to which he has added, “Codes and standards can distract us from lighting practice.”2
Such design-
ers resent the very existence of lighting standards. Meanwhile, the ‘best practice’ designers depend on lighting standards in order to do their job. It is their role in life to devise installations that are fully-compli- ant and which thereby represent the best of current lighting practice. For the past few decades, illuminance schedules have been maintained at their current levels, which could be described as saturation levels, and standards have responded by increas- ing their scope to include additional rules relating to other aspects of lighting. These range from ‘lighting quality’ factors, such as glare control, to others concerned with health, safety and sustainability. This added complexity has had the effect of raising the authority and self-assurance of ‘best practice’ designers. We need a total change of attitude towards standards. ‘Best practice’ designers need to come to terms with the fact that the illumi- nance schedules that form basis of light- ing standards have escalated way beyond levels that can be justified on the basis of visibility, and new thinking is needed on what is meant by “enough light”. ‘Archi- tectural’ designers need to recognise that lighting standards are not going to go away, and for there to be standards that specify “enough light” in ways that achieve that objective but do not “distract [them] from lighting practice”, they will need to become involved in the process of making standards. This could lead to a shared purpose for all
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