...without Light there would be no Architecture...

It is perhaps not too radical to suggest that without light there would be no architecture. Architecture is drawn
from light; light helps us to experience architecture as form and space, material and colour, structure and detail.
Light reveals architecture as both meaningful form and inhabitable space.[i] Light helps us to see buildings in
form and detail; it helps us to navigate our way in and around them, and it helps us to undertake the various
activities for which buildings are made. It is at once poetic and pragmatic, and for many architects, is the most
significant ingredient in the making of space. Marco Frascari has even suggested that light is a material out of
which architecture is created. [ii]
The principal source of light is the sun, which provides natural light directly, as sunlight, and indirectly, as
daylight, which both illuminate interiors by passing through windows. When light from the sun is not
available, it can be created by combustion, by burning wood or wax, oil or gas. Or it can be created through
the artifice of electricity, using lamps to convert energy into light. Together, natural and artificial light give
variety and flexibility to the way buildings are seen, the way they are used, and the way they are designed. In
the past several centuries, technologies for both natural and artificial light have changed dramatically,
facilitated in particular by the remarkable properties of glass.[iii] For natural light, advances in structure,
framing, and waterproofing of glass have changed the type and location of windows that can be created. For
artificial light, developments in filaments, phosphors, and gases all rely on the protective veil of glass to
transmits the light that is created. Changes in materials and finishes available for construction have also
affected the behaviour of light, by changing the way it is reflected, absorbed, or transmitted by the surfaces
that define built space. In particular, ‘specular’ reflections from highly polished or reflective surfaces, can be
used to multiply the image of an object or light source as seen within a space. This is a key architectural
strategy significant in the choice of materials and features such as water, marble, mirrors and glass.[iv]

[i] Marietta S. Millet, Light Revealing Architecture, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1996.
[ii] Marco Frascari, “The lume materiale in the Architecture of Venice” Perspecta 24, fall 1988, pp. 136-145.
[iii] Michael Wigginton, Glass in Architecture, London : Phaidon, 1996.
[iv] Mary Ann Steane, “Environmental Diversity and Natural Lighting Strategies,” in Steemers and Steane
(eds). Environmental Diversity in Architecture, pp. 159-178.