187rectly, i.e. by being reflected from surfaces or masses, thereby
accentuating their three-dimensionality. The surfaces that the
light encounters either absorb much of it, or reflect it with
decreased intensity, thereby transmitting something of their
colour and surface character.
The light explores the material properties of bodies and
surfaces. Because the gaze summons imagined tactile impres-
sions, to see means to touch with the eye. Side lighting is best
suited to forming shadows on textures; deep light brings out
the shimmer of stucco lustro. Behind an effulgent or matt
shimmering light, objects may become indistinct, but also
more strongly contoured, their appearance enhanced. In the
darkness, gold leaf catches the light, gleaming forth from the
depths of the space. Diffusion of light dematerializes surfaces,
softening and dissolving them and creating effects of spatial
depth into which light penetrates. Objects then seem to be
illuminated from within, thereby evoking enigmatic, almost
supernatural phenomena. The impression made by materials
and surfaces is dependent in decisive ways upon lighting. For
this reason, Peter Zumthor (2004) has proposed deploying
materials in architecture only after investigating the reflective
properties of their surfaces.
Shafts and cones of light are perceptible only through
their reflections, not in and of themselves. Despite their im-
materiality, they can be rendered visible, materialized, so to
speak. In dusty air, smoke or moisture, they may be visible as
shaped light volumes. In place of dust particles or water drop-
lets, ‘clusters’ of larger material particles too may be endowed
with form via their reflections, for example, the metal plates
in Harry Bertoia’s cylinder of light in the MIT Chapel. Fili-
gree latticework and grid structures can also capture sunlight.
Supports or pillars set directly below skylights, as in Axel
Schultes’s Crematorium in Treptow, are material receptors de-
signed to transmit light that falls into the room from above.
The spectrum of the spatial atmospheres that lighting
can achieve extend from the dimly lit cosiness of a living