Architecture of the night or nocturnal architecture, also referred to as illuminated architecture and, particularly in German, light architecture, is architecture designed to maximize the effect of night lighting, which may include lights from within the building, lights on the facade or outlining elements of it, illuminated advertising, and floodlighting.
With the rise of artificial lighting in the 19th and 20th centuries, architects were increasingly aware of it as an element to be integrated into design; deliberate use of it has been popular at various times, including the design of skyscrapers and other commercial buildings in the 1920s and 1930s, in the 1950s and 1960s, and in modern festive city architecture.
History The term is attributed to Raymond Hood, writing in a special issue of the Bulletin of the General Electric Company, also titled "Architecture of the Night," in February 1930.Dietrich Neumann, "Introduction," in Architecture of the Night: The Illuminated Building, ed. Dietrich Neumann, Munich/New York: Prestel, 2002, , pp. 6–7, p. 6: "When the American architect Raymond Hood coined the term 'Architecture of the Night' in 1930, the concept behind it had been enthusiastically debated for a number of years by lighting designers, critics and architects. They all were convinced that the nocturnal appearance of architecture had to be a carefully planned, important part of its design concept." He wrote:[T]he possibilities of night illumination have barely been touched. . . . Eventually, the night lighting of buildings is going to be studied exactly as Gordon Craig and Norman Bel Geddes have studied stage lighting. Every possible means to obtain an effect will be tried—color, varying sources and direction of light, pattern and movement. . . . [T]he illumination of today is only the start of an art that may develop as our modern music developed from the simple beating of a tom-tom.Dietrich Neumann, "'Architecture of the Night' in the U.S.A.," in Architecture of the Night pp. 54–67, p. 59. The cover of the General Electric publication is reproduced there as fig. 12 and is also the front cover of the book.The Western Architect 39.7, July 1930, p. 103.Casabella 63 (1999) p. 168. However, architects and designers had been preoccupied with the concept for some time. The German term Lichtarchitektur (light architecture) first appears in print in a 1927 essay by Joachim Teichmüller in Licht und Lampe, another technical electrical publication, but he had used it as a wall label at an exhibition five months before,Werner Oechslin, "Lichtarchitektur," in Moderne Architektur in Deutschland 1900 bis 1950: Expressionismus und neue Sachlichkeit, ed. Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani and Romana Schneider, Stuttgart: Hatje, 1994, , pp. 117–31, p. 117, where the German is cited. and there was a lengthy preceding history of more or less metaphysical discussion in Germany of "crystalline" architecture, the "dissolution" of cities, and the concept of the Stadtkrone (city crown), particularly among the members of the Gläserne Kette (Glass Chain).Simone Schimpf, "Die Wunder der Nacht—Die Rezeption der Lichtarchitektur in Malerei und Fotografie" / "The Wonders of the Night—'Light Architecture' in Painting and Photography," in Leuchtende Bauten: Architektur der Nacht / Luminous Buildings: Architecture of the Night, eds. Marion Ackermann and Dietrich Neumann, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz / Maidstone: Amalgamated Book Services, 2006, , pp. 30–37, 40–45, pp. 31–32, 41. (Louis I. Kahn held a similarly metaphysical view, saying in 1973 in his lecture at Pratt Institute that "light is really the source of all being".Oechslin, "Lichtarchitektur," p. 131, note 38, referring to Louis I. Kahn with John Lobell, Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn, Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala / New York: Random House, 1979, , p. 22.) In his essay, Teichmüller distinguishes between lighting design and light architecture, which will only come about through integration of the lighting engineer's concerns with those of the architect so that the "space-shaping power of light" itself is realized: "[T]his architectural light can lead to light architecture if with it, and only with it, specific architectural effects are produced, which appear and disappear simultaneously with the light."Werner Oechslin, "Light Architecture: A New Term's Genesis," in Architecture of the Night pp. 28–35, p. 28 (cited in translation). Also in 1927, Max Landsberg wrote that commercial centers now presented such different aspects by day and night that architecture of the day and of the night should be distinguished. He argued for "not only regulations, but planning and competitions" to facilitate the development of the latter and bring order to the current chaos of advertising.Oechslin, "Lichtarchitektur," p. 126, citing Max Landsberg, "Lichtreklame im Stadtbild," Der Städtebau 22.3 (1927), p. 35: "Die Geschäftsstadt hat schon heute bei Tag und bei Nacht ein so verschiedenes Aussehen, daß man von einer Stadtbaukunst für den Tag sprechen kann, und eine solche für die Nacht fordern muß." That same year, Hugo Häring foresaw the "nocturnal face" of architecture soon eclipsing the "diurnal face."Hugo Häring, "Lichtreklame und Architektur," Architektur und Schaufenster 24.8 (1927), quoted in translation in Neumann, "Lichtarchitektur and the Avant-Garde," in Architecture of the Night, pp. 36–53, p. 38. And also that same year, Walter Behrendt devoted a section in his book Sieg des neuen Baustils (translated edition: The Victory of the New Building Style) to "artificial illumination as a problem of form" and defined one of the tasks of new building as being:not only to use these new possibilities [of electric lighting] but also to design them, [whereupon] illumination is exploited in a functional sense, that is, it becomes an effective tool for designing the space, explaining the spatial function and movement, and accentuating and strengthening the spatial relations and tensions.Walter Curt Behrendt, Der Sieg des neuen Baustils, Stuttgart: Wedekind, 1927, pp. 47–48; tr. Harry Francis Mallgrave with introduction by Detlef Mertins, The Victory of the New Building Style, Texts & Documents, Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2000, , p. 133; referenced in Oechslin, "Light Architecture," pp. 31–32, with a differing translation. Behrendt's examples include one interior: the lighting of a staircase in Otto Bartning's Red Cross Building in Berlin by means of tubular light fixtures placed under the corners of the flights of stairs, "underscor[ing] . . the stairs' tendency toward movement."Behrend, The Victory of the New Building Style p. 133, figs. 66, 67.
A British endorsement of the same concept, P. Morton Shand's Modern Theatres and Cinemas (1930), confines itself to external lighting but embraces advertising, which was to remain a point of contention:[N]ight architecture is something more than a transient phase or a mere stunt. It is a definite type of modern design with immense possibilities for beautifying our cities, which is opening up entirely new and untrammelled perspectives of architectural composition. Publicity lighting is becoming to architecture what captions and lay-outs are to journalism—a new and integral part of its technique, which can no longer be ignored or derided with superior academic 'art for art's sake' smiles.P. Morton Shand, Modern Theatres and Cinemas, London: Batsford, 1930, p. 28.
From the beginning to World War II
Electrical companies promoted the integration of lighting design into architecture, beginning with the World's Fairs of the late 19th century.John A. Jakle, City Lights: Illuminating the American Night, Landscapes of the Night, Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 2001, : for example the heavy investment by General Electric in the Southern Exposition at Louisville in 1883, the last to use gas light and the first to make heavy use of electric lighting, pp. 147–48. In the late 1920s, General Electric was exhibiting model buildings at its Nela Park research facility in Cleveland to illustrate modern electrical advertising and building illumination as well as street lighting, and General Electric and Westinghouse both built theaters in which to display streetscapes under differing lighting conditions.Neumann, "'Architecture of the Night' in the U.S.A.," p. 58. Floodlighting of buildings and monuments, developed and refined by lighting engineers like Luther Stieringer and Walter D'Arcy Ryan at successive fairs, was encouraged as a way to showcase a city's most prominent buildings, particularly skyscrapers: the first attempt at floodlighting the Statue of Liberty took place in 1886, the top of the Singer Building was floodlighted in 1908, the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. during World War I.Jakle, pp. 180–85. It was soon discovered that the angle and nature of the lights distorted architectural features; in the same promotional publication as Hood's essay, Harvey Wiley Corbett argued for the form of the building to take floodlighting into account from the beginning, in a continuation of changes that had already taken place, such as the elimination of the cornice. "The form of the illuminated portion should be so tied in with the rest of the building that it should appear as a jewel in a setting, forming a coherent part of the entire structure." The setback skyscraper shape was best from this point of view, and Hood argued that classical architecture should simply not be floodlighted.Neumann, "'Architecture of the Night' in the U.S.A.," pp. 58–59. Floodlighting also influenced the materials of many buildings: at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, a rough finish was used on Ryan's advice to diffuse the light and avoid glare,Neumann, "'Architecture of the Night' in the U.S.A.," p. 55. and conversely the 1921 Wrigley Building in Chicago was built with a pale terra cotta facade that becomes whiter and more reflective with increasing height, to maximize the effect of floodlighting.Jakle, p. 185."Selected Projects" in Architecture of the Night, pp. 88–227, p. 108. Lighting was an important part of the competition between skyscrapers.Rosemarie Haag Bletter, "Art Deco Skyscrapers: Towers of Modern Babel," in Berlin/New York: Like and Unlike: Essays on Architecture and Art from 1870 to the Present, ed. Josef Paul Kleihues and Christina Rathgeber, New York: Rizzoli, 1993, , pp. 330–39, p. 335.