The light of the cities

Light plays a key role in shaping the image of modern cities. Illumination concepts and complete master plans are therefore in great demand.
The city is the birthplace of artificial public illumination. Since the spectacles of the world exhibitions and the great boulevards of the 19th century, complex and sometimes chaotic light landscapes have been created all over the industrialized world, above all in the major metropolises. There are really only two weighty factors that set limits to these “seas of light”: shop closing times and the chronic financial state of the municipalities. Visibility in the inner cities even in the dark half of the day is of major importance for everyone – not just for the inhabitants of the cities but increasingly also for the cities themselves, particularly in the era of competition between towns and cities. The city is becoming a stage, with the result that there is widespread demand for illumination concepts and entire masterplans for inner city areas.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the cities have the chance to put new concepts into practice. Future-oriented lighting concepts are more than just instructions on how to ensure that locations are brightly lit in an arbitrary manner; they help to enhance the cultural image of public spaces, to raise urban consciousness, and to promote urban lifestyle. Mould-breaking developments in the lighting industry – such as those from Philips – create the technical prerequisites for modern illumination schemes. Every lighting concept begins with an analysis of the given situation. Differentiation between first, second and third light allows us to gain a practical overview. The first light of the city is the municipal lighting system. This light is an obligatory light governed by DIN or other national standards and is designed to ensure safety and enable people to find their way at night. Serving as a functional public lighting system, this first light was long seen as a synonym for city illumination per se.

The second light can be summarized as the “commercial light”. This is the light of the department stores and hypermarkets, the big companies, the hotels, restaurants, cinemas, bars and pedestrian precincts. It attracts visitors and holds promise, presents products in their best light, and transforms the city into an illuminated event of buyable wishes and sensations, into the artificial paradise of superfluity. Where the first and second lights meet, the second light is the stronger force. In pedestrian precincts, the first light is often hardly noticed and can frequently be completely replaced by the second light, thus saving money for the municipalities.
The third light is not a “must-have light” but an optional form of illumination, a characterising, accentuating and atmospheric light. In contrast to the first and second lights, the third light does not serve as an extension of daylight. It is not about functional necessities geared towards prolonging day-to-day activities; it is about nocturnal stories – it has its own reality, a reality that is created by the dialogue between light and city. The city as stage needs scenographies that combine tradition and progress, realization and imagination, the permanent and the fleeting. There is no identity of a city without an outward image of a city. A city with panorama and portals, with a centerpiece and a river – in the spirit of the classic European settlement – can still fulfill this potential today.

Every long-term illumination concept is based on a consensus between owners, residents etc. on the quality of the light, the amount of light, its color and the way in which it is applied. One of the preconditions for light design is the basic possibility of revising the existing civic illumination scheme, also by making use of the municipal functional lighting, the first light. If the lighting technology is modernized during these renewal projects, this generates both aesthetic and financial benefits. In the best case scenario, a new illumination scheme can save enough energy to pay for itself.

The internationally commonplace concept of "city beautification" is achieved all the better by concentrating on the theme of the city layout with all its varying illumination situations. Quality is enhanced by omission and separation, by the conscious distribution of light and dark, and by transitions between differentiated tonal values. The measure of all things is not the brightness but the key “raw material” of darkness.

As an active process, imagination calls not so much for a big show made up of large-scale illumination systems as for a concept focusing on low-level subtle illumination from inconspicuous light sources. The quality of urban life is enhanced not by a spectacular sequence of attractions but by a continuous flow of the lighting concept. The idea to use weakly accentuated light integrates economic, aesthetic and ecological considerations and therefore promotes political acceptance. Urban illumination schemes enable the onlooker to view the lighting scheme of a city as an overall concept of creative urbanity.