IN THIS ISSUE:

LUCE met Carlotta de Bevilacqua, soul mate in life and work of Ernesto Gismondi, the founder of Artemide, who tells us about her meeting with her husband, but also the encounter between science, humanism and beauty. At the helm of Artemide in three professional guises: architect and designer; scholar who loves to experiment, research and teach; manager and global entrepreneur. She is difficult to contain in words. Curious about the world, ideas and fellow human beings, she starts a dialogue with us, in the philosophical sense of the term, alternating speaking with listening, where her passion for music also emerges. Not surprisingly, one of her lamps, Come Together, pays homage to the Beatles.

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LUCE caught up with the Dutch designer that the Businessweek has recognized as a “leader of change” for his desire to move forwards and embrace new challenges, who tells us about his thoughts on design, light and new technologies. “…As designers and manufacturers, we have to try to create things that will not lose their value over time. It is important to bring beauty into our everyday life… How is it possible that the virtual world, which is totally artificial, can attract us more than the real world? I believe that human beings must try to be ‘amazingly’ physical and ‘outrageously’ virtual.”

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Gaetano Castelli is an architect, set designer and painter from Rome, who is cultured, elegant and multiaward-winning. He worked with Franco Zeffirelli and other main directors, signed 21 editions of the Sanremo Music Festival (from 1987 to 2023) and is already working on the next Italian Song Festival, a calling card abroad for Italian style and culture under the banner of the “well done” also in the architecture of light for entertainment. LUCE interviewed this painter of light and architect of magic, boasting an enviable resume, who (only a few people know it) also designed the sets for the first of RAI’s news broadcasts. Now, he continues to excel in creativity, inventiveness and poetics.

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Laura Bellia is the new president of the historic Italian Lighting Association, founded in 1959. She is a full professor of Technical Environmental Physics at the University of Naples Federico II, where she teaches Lighting Engineering, Lighting Design and Technical Environmental Physics. She is the author of numerous national and international publications. She has been AIDI’s scientific director during the previous presidency and recently appointed member of the Governing Board of the Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage (CIE). Elected with flying colours, she takes over from Gian Paolo Roscio who, from June 2018, was at the helm for five years. LUCE met her to talk about her training and quality light goals.

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The education of lighting designers in Italy is inadequate to make students aware that a specific lighting system is needed for every single project and to make future architects and designers acquainted with the relevant role of this professional profile. The author takes a critical approach to the topic, offering an unbiased overview of the existing state of play in Italy and exposing the benefits to be gained by providing and supporting a good education in order to improve professional quality in an industry such as lighting, which is complex and multifaceted.

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Michele Schintu, from Cagliari, Italy, born in 1989, is an architect and lighting designer. His firm essequadro | p ingegneria architettura – winner of the Lighting design award 2022 in the heritage lighting category for the project of the Torre di Barì (Sardinia) – deals with integrated design, and lighting is playing an important part in most of his projects. He talked to LUCE about his latest project: the stunning lighting design at Palazzo Tirso – MGallery Hotel Collection 5*, on Cagliari’s picturesque seafront.

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In this edition, the choice of giving ample room to the communication of those realities in the world of Architecture, coming from the African continent, which are often misunderstood and poorly integrated compared to our western culture, is a starting point for launching a broader debate on the future of our cities and the new ways of living together in the anthropised environment, where the degree of uncertainty is sadly on the rise and requires us to reflect on new future ways of conceiving sustainable forms of living and coexisting with both city and nature.

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Adriano Caputo and the team of Studioillumina are the authors of the lighting project for the ancient cistern of the Eastern Roman Empire in Istanbul, which is much more than a simple lighting project, as the end result is a miscellaneous experience with a highly conceptual and cultural profile. In this project, light is conceived as a spiritual, alchemical and metaphorical dimension synthesising the characteristics of the space, history and culture of a people.

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LUCE meets Iacopo Acciaro, the founder of Studio Voltaire in Milan, who tells us about his creative approach to design. He is a strong advocate of listening and sharing, the two elements that in his work form part of a fundamental process for understanding the design project.

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The circular economy, as a cultural horizon to be reached, is a new production and consumption model that implies several concepts such as sharing, reconditioning and recycling of existing materials and products. Today, this challenge is no longer just an opportunity but a necessity, as shown by some important indicators such as the catastrophic consequences of climate change and the reliance on raw materials that are becoming increasingly scarce. In this context, the world of lighting is also playing its share. And so, thanks to the collaboration with universities and research centres, companies are studying new eco-sustainable materials and designing re-usable and long-lasting products to favour the ecological transition process through new ways of social and environmental responsibility.

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LUCE met the celebrated artist on the occasion of his latest installations, Mariverticali at the Palazzo Reale in Milan and Plessi sposa Brixia at the Santa Giulia Museum, and Matthias Schnabel, a video designer and video set designer for events, theatre, modern dance, and video art installations who has been collaborating with Fabrizio Plessi since 2009 and is “the catalyst of the visions of the great master.” In Plessi’s vision of art, technology matters a great deal because it is meant to help art become an integral part of our own lives.

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Various studies reveal the influence of artificial light on the biological cycles of animals and plants, hence the need for lighting that can take into account not only visual needs, but also non-visual needs and, most importantly, circadian rhythms. How do these rhythms work and why is light so crucial? With this article, we begin a journey with the author to discover and investigate this area of study starting with an introduction that describes its origin and meaning.

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In LUCE 345 | 2023 you will find many other articles, interviews and in-depth features +. We are always on the lookout for new suggestions and ideas for understanding, explaining and publicising the world of Italian and international lighting. Keep reading and writing to us.

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