We had a wonderful opportunity to interview Paula Rainha in the very end of her Light World Tour with Philips. She has been touring the world for the last three months, visiting the best lighting sights on Earth and meeting all the interesting lighting people. Here are her impressions from the journey:
DTL: Where would you recommend one to start the journey of understanding lighting as a design?
If somebody wanted to start from scratch, where would you direct them to go?
Paula Rainha: I would recommend people to start this journey on their own city. Just by walking in the street during dark times, you could start questioning how different it looks from daytime. You may find inspiring or less inspiring lighting moments along the way, but I think it will be a good starting point to understand how important light is on how we perceive our own environments. With this in mind, lighting design becomes really crucial in giving the best image of your own city. And not only that but also experiencing lighting in many different ways. As our contemporary lifestyle requires the use of light almost everywhere, it could be a restaurant, a theatre, working areas, a library, public spaces, art, museums, etc; in all these places, lighting design can actually play a determinant role and influence us in how we live our daily life.
Her secret is patience in Phoenix (photo linked from www.lightworldtour.com)
DTL: You have seen the world from different lighting perspectives. Is there some geographical pattern to how people appreciate lighting design outside of the industry, as a part of their everyday life?
Paula Rainha: Since I’ve started travelling I had to look for ‘my lighting inspirations’ when it’s dark and just by walking in the different cities I realised I started to see things in a very different way. Light in a city can tell a great deal about the culture and the people that live in there. For example, Asian people like bright lights, therefore most of the cities have illuminated signage to attract people and there are more illuminated buildings than in Europe. In Korea, I came across a Festival of Lanterns, remains of their Chinese ancestry, which is still very popular. In Denmark and Norway people light their houses with candles and even the streets have a very low level of lighting. Europeans are quite proud of their historic cities, so you can appreciate a lot of heritage buildings lit up. These are just a few examples but I’m sure there are more geographical patterns that could be found all around the world.
DTL: Out of your destination sites, how much of actually awesome lighting requires the use of innovation and cutting edge technology and how much of it works on a plain good idea and simple solutions? Could you bring some examples?
Paula Rainha: I think on my destination sites I had a good combination of very simple ideas but very effective, and similarly lighting schemes that used the technology to enhance and to achieve things in a different way. I can actually recall an example of a scheme that used both of simple solutions and cutting edge technology: the Liuli China Museum in Shanghai. The façade had white peony tri-dimensional petals that at night with the use of coloured lighting had two different colour shades. If you had just used white light you wouldn’t have had the same effect. It was actually a very simple idea but that used the technology on its advantage. In addition, the interior stairs of the museum were lit with candles, once again, a very simple idea but that didn’t really need cutting edge technology as you can imagine, but still equally inspiring.
DTL: Out of the places you have visited so far, what is the most impressive place to witness on location? Would you be so kind and submit us an image to use as an illustration to this interview?
Paula Rainha: That’s a very hard question because in each city I found very interesting and inspiring lighting and, in such a journey, I find it really hard to pick just one. But I think the permanent art installation ‘Her Secret is Patience’ by Janet Echelman in Phoenix, Arizona would be something that I recommend everyone to see. Very beautiful and very inspiring indeed!
Read Paula’s full travel journal at http://www.lightworldtour.com/
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