Crete seminar looks to France for building lighting design
Pioneering French know-how in the lighting of large buildings, an emerging field in modern architecture, has given rise in Greece to a broader debate regarding how best to enhance the country’s main sights. An exhibition titled «Lights and Architecture – Lumieres sur la France,» which is currently on show in Hania’s Center for Mediterranean Architecture at the Big Arsenal (Katehaki Square, tel 28210.401.01) serves as a platform, or an ideas workshop, with a three-day seminar on the topic organized for May 19-21 and featuring acclaimed Greek architects discussing lighting design as a necessary component of a complete concept. The lighting of buildings is a key factor in altering and enhancing the nocturnal urban landscape. It highlights the city’s contrasts by night and by day, creating a play between the fantastical qualities lighting can give a building and the starkness of much modern architecture. The Hania exhibition contains mainly photographs of monumental lighting projects in France by expert lighting designers, such as Pierre Bideau, which highlight the innovation and application of new technologies in recent years that have expanded the debate over so-called «nocturnal architecture.» The exhibition, which was previously presented in China, has been brought to Greece with the cooperation of the French Institute of Athens and the French Embassy.
