Architecture of light : recent approaches to designing with natural light / by Mary Ann Steane

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents : 1. Speaking of light, speaking with light: Le Corbusier's 'carnets de recherche patiente', Une Petite Maison and La Chapelle de Ronchamp --
2. Desert tent: Light and geometry in the church of the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Tinity, Las Condes, Santiago de Childe --
3. Deciding the colouring of things: Scarpa's Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice --
4. Reading light at Seinajoki, Finland, and Viana do Castelo, Portugal: Aalto's and Siza's conspicuous conservation of daylight --
5. Enlightening conversation: The Music Room and the Open City, Ritoque, Chile --
6. Seeing the light: The Poole House, Lake Weyba, Queensland / James Bichard, ed. Mary Ann Steane --
7. O'Donnell and Tuomey's lesson in teh history and geography of light: The Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School, Dublin, 1998 --
8. Inverse light? The vulnerable openings of Libeskind's Jewish Museum, Berlin --
.9 New light for old across London: Recent interventions at the Carmelite Priory, Kensington, by Niall McLaughlin, and at 1A John Campbell Road, Hackney, by Lisa Shell --
10. The electricity of daylight? Herzong and De Meuron's excavation of dusk at London's Bankside Power Station, 1998-2000 --
Index.

Reviewing the use of natural light by architects in the era of electricity, this book aims to show that natural light not only remains a potential source of order in architecture, but that natural lighting strategies impose a usefully creative discipline on design. Considering an approach to environmental context that sees light as a critical aspect of place, this book explores current attitudes to natural light by offering a series of in-depth studies of recent projects and the particular lighting issues they have addressed. It gives a more nuanced appraisal of these lighting strategies by set.