Why light really matters

Have you ever entered a space and then immediately experienced a sense of presence? What is it about a space that awakes one’s senses and the awareness of being and existing in a space?

Henry Plummer, an architecture professor and photographer, has documented various facets of daylight of masters like Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.

During this process he observed the following: “A further significance of daylight as a creative tool in architecture is that it has moods, which are able to infuse physical things with a metaphysical spirit, and can totally alter the character of a building. These mysterious phenomena not only illuminate architectural form but also give it emotional depth, while keeping us tuned to the universe outside as well as the world hidden within us. Without the atmospheric presence of daylight, buildings might be able to support our bodies but they would never be able to sustain our spirits—something we require as human beings.”

Louis Kahn regarded light as a “giver of all presences”: “All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.” For him, light was the maker of material, and material’s purpose was to cast a shadow.

“We are born out of light and every space we live in is thought of in the choreography, you might say, in the making of a plan which is in search of light and that the structure is the maker of light. You think of structures where the light is going to be given, not just what’s going to encase a room. So, my consciousness of light comes from that source – that without light you don’t have space, or, you might say, a room.” (Kahn as quoted in, “A House Within a House.”)