DA05 Complete

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Daylight&

architecture

Magazine

byvelux

spring2006

issue05

texture&

light

10

euro

spring2006

issue05

texture&

light

10

euro

DAYLIGHT &ARCHITECTMagazine b

VeLUX


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Lihts toch chanes evethin. What la shoded in daknessis evealed, and hidden spaces sddenl open wide nde lihtsdance. In itsel, nseen, we see b means o lihts seless activ-it. In phsics, the enement o lihts toch is meased b itswavelenth. The ve smallness o visible lihts intenal pattenedmovement aantees that the tiniest detail, the most sbtle tex-te, emains visible. The bshed sace o metal and the lam-enta stands o the spides web wold both ade into invisibiliti liht wee lae, its wavelenth lone.

Einstein aleted s to the niqe ole plaed b the speed oliht, which is a nivesal absolte in a elative nivese, an lti-

mate limit in a limitless cosmos. He and Max Planck discoveedthat, althoh massless, even liht has its least pat the qan-tm o photon. And et that qantm, like liht itsel, eldes oconceptal asp, maintainin its sbtle ambiit and whole-ness thoh all attempts to conne and dene it. Ove cont-less eas, staliht tavels om the most distance eaches ospace and om the beinnins o time to each o ees. In a mi-acleo ecipocit oees aeso peectl adapted to liht that

discourse

byArthurZAjonc


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D&A SPrINg 2007 ISSuE 05

Sace and om is the ltimate mateialisationo texte. And texte is the tanible top lae othe sbstance. O ees ide s to ndestandthese mattes.

Since the beinnin o man, we have tstedpon o abilit to jde on behal o what we see.This jdement is ccial o o svival. Bt some-

times what we see tns ot to be dieent omwhat we expected. We expeience that when wept on o hands and eel the mateial on o skin.Conseqentl, we adapt and adjst o peceptionand ndestandin o saces and sbstances.

This isse oDaylght & Archtecture ties toscatch the notion o sace, to ncove what isbehind the visible lae, seachin o maic o

eventall dakness? Otside in. Inside ot. I haveseen it with m own ees Does it ive an mean-in in the te? We asked 3 hihl espectedpesons om vaios elds o at and science toelate thei knowlede with the concept o s-

ace and the inteaction with daliht. We pesentthei answes to t to ncove what lies BENEATH,

addin new eections to the web o lie.The aade and the oo o a hose is like o

skin eactin on chanin weathe conditions en-

ablin potection and povidin the livin condi-tions that ae vital o o health and well-bein.Withot daliht thee will be no lie. Bt liht isalso vital o o ndestandin o phsical s-ondins contexts as well as o o mental bal-ance. VELuX wold like to set new standads oindoo comot and ene efcienc within thebilt envionment, impovin o livin and wok-in conditions. The VELuX Atika concept hoseealises this vision in a ll-scale expeiment that

o can see and eel.

Enjo eadin isse #5.

VELUX

VELUX EditoriALHANDS ON

NOW

rELECTIONSimAgE And rEALity

DAyLIgHTINgbEnEAth

VELuX INSIgHT

within hEAVy wALLs

VELuX PANOrAMAMANKIND & ArCHITECTurEcErtAin sLAnts o Light

What happens when liht meets a sapoond is its eect? And how has otion o textes and liht alteed in the the centies? An essa and 3 intevieatists, achitects and scientists thow s

on the matte.

The aaelal ueu in the castle obe-ce-re was not bilt o etenit. Bt de-spite its lihtweiht desin, which will make it eas

to emove qickl when the time comes, it still pos-

sesses all the qalities o a nomal msem themost impotant bein a pleasant atmosphee andooms ll o daliht.

beker Arhieken desined Klizyin rieden to the pinciple o a convetiblelachwood panellin o the lae loiaolded completel to one side. Atka, the mcept hose, also stikes the ee de to its odieentiated achitecte that matchesment o the sn. It poves that lihtweihttion can make sense in sothen climes as

What is pobabl Le cobue last mastewok

has been inaated in imin, ance. The hau

er Kun (Hose o At) in Mnich invites thepblic to the Aea guk etospective. Anapatment hose in Mexico Cit has been deco-ated with hand-blown lass balls, anothe in M -nich with silk-sceen pinted chestnt-tee leaves.Pls: The new concet hose in Badajoz b Jsela and Luia cano is an ndeond btbiht and ai bildin.

Two-dimensional imaes will contine to dthe wa we peceive achitecte, accodi

re becase the help s test o pescepts o ealit. In his aticle, redi descibpoach adopted o the pesentation o ac

ove the last 250 eas om Pianesi s Ctodas photoealistic liht simlations.

Ideoloies, as well as liht conditions and b ildintaditions that die om eion to eion, havehad a decisive inence on how liht and saceshave been handled in achitecte. In his aticle,ra wetonexplains how achitects have ne-

otiated the difclt teain between honest odesin and sophisticated disise and how thehave woked with liht and shadow, eectionsand tanslcenc.

Discose b Ath ZajoncVELuX Editoial

ContentsNowMankind and achitectecea la lDalihtinbeeaEopean LihtEae Aala, tukereectionsiae a ealDalihtin detailsL sulaa lVELuX Insihtw heav wallmueu be-ce-reVELuX Panoamara e tiKA ep ue emeeaea laeA vele laKlzk ue ree

VELuX DialoeL tieve Lue gluieve gzal Paieve Aaaa KaauBooksrevereeaPeview

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contEnts


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4 D&A SPrINg 2007 ISSuE 05

ANDrEASgurSKy:BAhrAini,2005C-PrINT,299

25CM.COPyrIgHTANDrEASgurSKy/VgBILD-KuNST.COurTESyMONIKASPrTH/PHILOMENEMAgErS

The thins that make achitecte tick:events, competitions and selected new devel-opments om the wold o dalihtin.

now

PHOTO:fErNANDOCOrDErO

Andeas gsk was bonand his photoaph o mon

achitectes, he thonple and dazzlin wolds o tion, mostl capted oand epodced in laehave made him the mostl livin photoaphe atems o the pices his imamand at action. om nowMa 2007, the Has de Kle in Mnich is displaintion o his woks consistiphotoaphs. Even bione o the idin themes o

gsk exhibition: coveisqae metes, the opletion aea is not the onl asis bi - mch o the photo

teial has also been ewokpodced in a lae omathe possibilities available tolaest o these now meas508 centimetes.

In the eal 980s, Andsk stdied at the State Aem in Dsseldo ndeand Hilla Beche. Howevesoon boke awa om tmalist, stictl docmento photoaph and beate the commodit clttecte and cltal landmankind in caell compmental pictes, which heewoked in ode to shapaes statements. In gsk

the individal becomes a co

seeminl scaleless machican appea as a avin maple o jst as easil in the o

ovesized hotel oe o thoo o a bstlin stock ex

Planned te veneAndeas-gsk exhibition

on displa in Mnich ae bl Moden, the Shajah At

the Hose o Photoaphcow and the National galltoia in Melbone.

Let it not be said that handicat nolone has a ole to pla in modencivil enineein. In the Colonie Po-lanco in Mexico Cit, Alejando Vila-eal and his achitecte and desinofce Hieve Diseea ecentl com-pleted the Hesiodo apatment bild-in, whose ed concete acadesae adoned with a total o 7,723hand-blown lass balls esemblina and-scale ctain o peals. Ale-jando Vilaeal dew his inspiation

o this nsal acade decoationthat leams in the snliht om thesteets o his native cit: The idea istaken om the expeiences o walk-in thoh a maket in Mexico Citand seein how the it and veeta-bles ae set ot; om seein a picteo childen plain with soap bbblesin a pblic sqae; om obsevin theMexican cltes ceaseless eot to

constct its ealit thoh epeti-tion; om the need to incopoatemaic and innocence in o eve-da lie, and mainl om emembe-in that beat can be pesent in odail lives i we ive it a chance.

The bildin is sitated on a small

steet in a esidential aea o Mex-ico Cit, not a om a bs shop-pin aea. His two bildin sections

a o-stoe ontal bildin onthe noth side and a ve-stoe ea

bildin on the soth side - accom-modate 3 ats and an ndeondaae. A centall positioned blockwith lobb, stais and elevatos con-nects the two bildin sections with

each othe. The nothel and loweo the bildins eates a oo te-ace that can be sed b all the esi-dents o celebations o events. Theaile lass ball ctains povide the

noth and soth acades o the bild-in, as well as the oo teace, witha deee o pivac. Viewed omwithin, the mellow into a kind o sot

een veil in ont o the - at times -seeminl chaotic ban panoamao Mexico Cit. The balls wee po-dced in a lass blowin wokshopin gadalajaa and then attachedto wie cables with commeciallavailable nts and an intemediateEPDM bbe lae. Each o the ten-

sioned cables in ont o the acadescaies a maximm o 27 balls. Ac-codin to Alejando Vilaeal, the n-sal acade constction has so anot seed an ill eects om theweathe althoh the cleanin po-

cede is somewhat moe time con-smin, takin abot twice as lonas o a nomal acade.

AAdE Art,hAnd bLown

AndrEAs gUrsin thEhAUs dEr KUns


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In ecent months, an indstial aea o

a dieent kind has come into beinon the Mhlbachcken in the soth-en pat o the nivesit town o T-binen. The site is centall locatedet sonded b a pak and has at-tacted not onl pivate companiesbt also the Tbinen distict admin-istation ofce. The laest bildinon the site, the new headqates othe Tbine Stadtspakasse bank,was desined b the Stttat a-chitects Ae+Webe+Assoziieteand is, om an extenal pespective,not exactl conspicosl extava-ant. The sqae-shaped oo plano the six-stoe cbe is sondedb a eestandin steel ame thatincopoates the snblinds and isalso nsall stonl eminiscento the late woks b Mies van derohe om the uSA. And in tems oopenness the new bildin cetainl

embodies the Mies-like spiit: as lonas the sn blinds ae not blockin theline o siht, the ofce wokes canenjo an nintepted view towads

the otside thoh tiple-lazedoo to ceilin windows. The inteioooms ae exceptionall spacios bgeman standads; sepaated, indi-vidal ooms wee onl allocated toexective sta.

Light mUsicAL scALE

The liht-ooded heat o the so-called Spakassen Ca is the lass-

ooed om in the inne cotadthat can accommodate 500 peopleand is sed o event s. Howeve, it isnot onl the occpants that ll thisoom with lie: the chomatic scalelass sclpte b the atist Ben-had Hbe inteated into the lass

oo ltes and colos the incom-in daliht in a snn ellow tone.The Enlish wod scale can be sedboth in a dimensional and a msi-cal context, and this is how Hbewold like his wok o at to be inte-peted. He sbdivides the lass oointo individal paallel stips withinwhich clea, white and ellow lassaeas altenate in iela hthms.

Simila to a melod, thee ae mlti-level inteactions in the stle o thevaios spatial lass-beain a-anements, explains Hbe. In its

entiet, the chomatic scale istheeb eminiscent o the abstactnotation o a piece o msic o o the

decibel scale o an electonic ampli-e thoh in an event the at-ist demonstates his eveence o a

bildin in which evethin centes

aond nmbes and scales.

Badajoz, the Spanish-Potese bo-

de town on the banks o the ga-diana ive, has etained its potec-tive extenal appeaance even inthese times o Eopean nit. Thetown cente is sonded b anextensive deensive wall that wasconstcted din the PoteseWa o Independence om 640-68

and modelled on the desin b theench eninee Vaban. In sbse-qent centies it did not alwasonl seve milita pposes: in the8th cent one o the a each-in bastions was iven a ciclaecess that cold be sed as a bll-htin aena o an open ai thea-te o indeed as a coness cente:as stiplated in the conditions o theachitects competition in 999, won

b the selascano ofce n b JosSelas and Lcia Cano. Evethinwe wee lookin o, was alwas al-

ead thee iht beoe o veees, explain the achitects toda.Conseqentl, the cicla hole notonl povided the shape o the newbildin bt also enabled the neal7,500 sqae metes o oo spaceand the p to 25-mete hih staehose o the aditoim to almostcompletel disappea within the in-teio o the bastion. Indeed om the

otside, the bildin is onl eco-nisable b two tanslcent plasticclindes. The ote clinde, whichin act onl seves as a siht sceenand shade povide, consists o thin,be-lass einoced poleste ods

on a steel base constction. The sec-ond, inne clinde acts like a spatialconcentation o the st one; it con-sists o tanslcent polaclate that

din the da becomes a he po-jection aea o the liht and shad-ows beamed in om otside, and atniht, aticiall backlit, beams liht

back ot aain. The selascano o-ce displaed exteme atistic skillb enablin daliht to each eveninto the ooms located deep withinthe old bastion, in paticla into thelae ,000-seat aditoim belowthe aclic lass clinde. Enteinthoh a ond skliht, the da-liht then alls on a wave-like cved

and ibbed ceilin that dispeses theliht evenl thohot the oom.themoe, the pojection o theond sn spot emains visible om

inside thohot the da and ena-bles the deleates to tack the patho the sn aond the bildin.

o almost thee decades, the Saint-Piee chch, planned b Le Cobs-ie in 962-64, stood as a hal-nished

in in the small wokin class towno imin, on the easten ine othe ench Massi Cental. It wasspposed to have omed the nalstone o imin-Vet, a town ex-pansion scheme that bean in the950s in the spiit o the Chate oAthens, to which Le Cobsie alsocontibted a stadim, a clte cen-

te and a unit dhabitation.The 7.6 million completion o

the bildin was made possible notleast b state sbsidies. In view o the

act that in stictl laical ance, sch

nds ae not pemitted to be sedo saced bildins, Saint-Piee of-

ciall conts as a msem. The base-ment that was oiinall intendedo the paish meetin ooms, is nowhome to a banch o the Mse dAt

Modene in Saint-Etienne as well asa Le Cobsie msem. The chchitsel has been consecated, et it isdobtl whethe an eliios sev-ice will eve take place hee. unde its

towein, anlal sppoted coni-cal oo, opens p a cave-like spa ce oexposed concete, which, din theda, is onl illminated b a ew da-liht openins. Naow, head-hih,

all-aond window slits vitach the oo om its sbVia the oh exposed o the valt, liht stikes o lotil positioned lih

concete pipes o vaios dwith inteios painted inlow, ble and een. The le in St Piee is spplemesta sk in the easten wthe alta: the desin o smopenins in the concete ssent the sta constellations

gemini that ae to be seenection in the niht sk.

The oveall manaemebildin o the chch wtaken b Jos Obeie, oCobsies ome emploLe Cobsie ondation, a

o the achitects leac, haiven its plazet o the bspite some pesonal ame

and coections b Obeithe achitecte histoiraot, who was commissthe ondation to compile

the chch itsel [...] is oand spatial oiinalit thatond in the eatest woksbsie and in moden clt

iLLUminAtEd wrEAthon wALL coPing

bELAtEd mAstErPiEcE

Din the cose o the post-wadecades the gabelsbeestae inthe Mnich distict o Maxvostadthas become a ace tack o thoh

tafc. Thosands o vehicles se this

one-wa steet eve da in ode toeach the inne cit. Not even a teesotens the dea oad aea that isanked b not paticlal attac-tive post-wa bildins, one o whichwas, o a lon time, the b ildin atgabelsbee Stae 30: din the970s its acade had been decoated

with a diamond patten in oche andbown, et appeaed dab and bae.

In 2004, the on Mnich a-chitect Jakob Bade was commis-sioned to enovate and pade thisve-stoe esidential popet. The

statin point o Bades desin was

the lain lack o oadside eene.

Tees, an avene, he smised, wold

povide shade, edce tafc noiseand ive the whole steet aea a moeattactive chaacte. Since it was not

possible to simpl plant tees b thepavement, Bade commissioned thephotoaphic atist Kathin Scheto ceate chestnt eene imaes.These avene and bee aden teesthat ae so popla in Mnich weeto be pinted as imaes on lass dis-plas and ths ive the esidents at

least the eelin o livin in a eenaea Decoatos painted the bild-in in a esh een tone and a ttemonted some 20 nnin meteso steel ails, like ailwa tacks inont o the acade. These povidethe nnes o the 56 pinted-lassslidin shttes: a moveable avene,vibant and lsh and castin wildlomantic lea shadows towads theinside that ae, at st lance, indis-tinishable om the oiinal.

roAdsidE grEEnEryAs A worK o Art

PHOTO:KATHrINSCHfEr

PHOTO:rOLANDHALBE

PHOTO:rOLANDHALBE


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1

MANKINDAND ArCHITECTurE

Mankind as the ocal point o achitecte:inteio views o a coespondin elationship.

Text b richad Weston .

It took Jn utzon thee eas to develop the tiles thatcove the shells o his Opea Hose in Sdne, and tomake thei inteaction with the eve-chanin dalihtmatch his ideas. utzons Opea is onl one o manexamples o the sensibilit o 20th cent achitects inthei pla with textes and liht. Thei oten expeimen-tal teatment o mateial saces elates to sch diveseactos as solidit and demateialisation, the enis loci,the hman peception and concens abot ene.

Lecturing in 1919 o h sbj o xs a h RoyalD A A, C P, q- Fb M, , , b - q -ms h so. Wh a o maal, h ass,

h oal oh o b soly o h sa: lay o ommas qvoal sas, moll by lh a sha- b ,b .

B odee, e me er Peere eure, Mev der Roe omeed omeo roje or ower B F j -oed e b o rd ew reure. Te bud

, -- , j, bb b M B.

Alhoh vo h oh, Pss all o solywas o h vs o ha soh osay o b ,o whh s o x a olo w always s assoay. Sh, a las, ha amosly b ma la

Albs Books, whos avoay o whss a s h b

wword o Neo-C. Me d o , b o-, q qals, a a la, h oj soh s B P, -ed, ured oe d refe oo reed e mo .

the light of the north versus the light of the south:foundations of european modernism

I , - b - , b (E)ahal xpsso, h, omplm h amla

, y a b s as a soy o ahs m , b , .

T . I F, , J L ed De Sj-ke ue o eem wee b . I M C, msmsly so: My objv, Lvsk says, h b , b- R . Ipoj a Kopo, h appl olo o h h , S H b

C S I S.Fed w e , ee u o ouer S, Bz G H Z . B , . P b , -h o s l oly by o la ops, aBz z . B b z, b .

C Bz , 1991, b , qals ha ha mak vaos sas o pos-wa. P b L Cb, bton bruM U b J ve we ombed w deermo o reod .

A S H, , A A b b , z , xaoay vo. La, wh Sjok ow H lva, w-shap blok s la wh ak-bl. A q - -,

certAin slAntso light


PHOTO:HISAOSuZuKI


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, , - b. W alls oblqly aoss s sas, h bl appas as a P b; , vals o lh-olo bw h ls bom, b b .

I e eebred exerme w o ummer-ouveo Muuro, Ao ed more ero me, rr b, z , - o a sas whos haa shs osaly, b, . I b b , b F, b -, A b I. W

, ?

light and genius loci:the work of carlo scarpa

I C S , h bl aos o V, wh h sao ob q J R b q q, - .

You ee everwere: e der-ered dd o eDos Pala, lh as sh ab; h polyhom Cos- b -o wer; d Vee e beoved o Sr,zz pavimenti alla veneziana b . I O Pzz M, S zz b - , q b b - . Tb , - b .

Fo h ls o h al ly o h Q SampalaF, S , stucco allaveneziana. I h vaa kow as marmorino, mabl pow-

- ,whh s ha by a fv sh mpa wh a ho. T b bb .

A b S Lz, bks appa o foa a max o moa a hym sb-lmally wh h la maks o h ks o hb . A K, , b-

wok s hh by oas wh h am obl-laz s ha a la ov, ah ha , h wow. T - , , - q .

A Syy Opa Hos w o somh sm-

, b b . T saso la o h a plaom ows o o h , b . J Uz b : b -b M E; - , b , b z b.

I , b z , - - b, q , , , . A - , o e er o dow d refeed bewee e e.T , , b, .

autonomy of material:architecture since the 1980s

F q , h wok o Aalo, Lwz a Uzo hs aoally

1.Alberto Campo Baeza: CasaGaspar in Cadiz (1992)

i cap baeza ue, uae, pee e aaulae e eae eaek e aual u-u, ae eue e queee.

The liht in this hose is hoizontal andcontinos, mioed b the east-westoientation o the cotad walls.Simpl, a hoizontal, continos spaceis tensed b a hoizontal liht.

Albeto Campo Baeza


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65 131211


. S , , b rer o meeo k or buerfe w. Bu oer, b UK b DG, - - vsal possbls om laz aas o vas, - b .

S- b b - o ree dro ure romoe e w b . T , b

, b b , b- b .

From e exreme o mm e wee o e b , h lms o h ao o maals a lh. B asew eero o mr mer beome wde ordbe, b b b b - .

b W b , wh sk sls: whas Go/Gys bl -as opally wh s vom, Holls sas ysal- .

T q H , ,s ha by h a ha h lass plaks a mo obv-osly pa o a os o: a almos wo as b, b S b Fak Ghys baoq aps, ol b ha h sas- b deed re reer emeve? Re e eure o b A , q- K H b , b -o vals o J Uzos Basv Chh, I ao

hlp l ha h s somh mo ply sasyb - . B b , b- b, b . N, , b L K Kb AM, -ree d rvere ure: K mou dered e b-, Kb .

light and energy:material experiments in the service of ecology

B - , , b b b . A , z b D Sz D b S . I , bud ou- eevo ere foor-o-e

-z , s lq sa, a so sola y. As h mpaops h solo ysalls, s om aspa o opa-q .

S - j ovaos ha a op p w ways o bl s-

q la a, whl wh Sapa ha a was, as o as o, b b. A -ao o ahs ha m h 0s, howv, h b b a. A ky spao was Mmals a, a h wok oDod Judd rur. Ce e ero o me , J , , - - b.

By bls o smpl o amla oms, a , b q . V z- b b

P Z R C, B S Zb H b .S, Hz M N V-, q b b .

A ere ed rom oque, m mer o refeve,rre or rue oe, e exreve re exded.Deo ruur k r-ree roud er W, G/G - b b ,

w, refe e urroud d mbe , eem b . S, , L M

Az b b - q, . F Bz,P Z z -z, - b. T b , b , .

Emu ee Sw mode, e Bo Bud exe- N-A M A K C, S-v Holl pla v a la, lass-plak-la volms h lasap. Ty a as oo-lhs o a laly - b, b -

ra we is Poesso o Achitecte at Cadi univesit andedito oActectual reseac Quatelypblished b Cambideunivesit Pess. His books inclde a Si Baniste letche Pize-winninstd o Alva Aalto; Modesm; Mateals, Fom ad Actectue; andUtzo. ispato, Vso, Actectue. His cent wok involves the explo-ation o natal mateials as soces o desins o vaios diital man-actin techniqes: these ae discssed in his latest book, Fomatos:mages om ocks, and at www.atuallyexclusve.com.

23.Steven Holl Architects: St.Ignatius Chapel in Seattle (1997)

gla l ee eu u all l aa eveal eeula uue e pla-e uae e all avaule el.

4.Alvar Aalto: ExperimentalHouse in Muuratsalo (1953)

Alva Al ue e k all ue ue muu-aal la a a expee-al aea ee kkp a e ea- l.

5.Sigurd Lewerenjtz:

Klippan Church (1966)te all, a vauleel, all ak kk,e e u e aave-lke apee.

6.Jrn Utzon:Opera in Sydney (1973)

te pea ue l alu, ae u-all e ue e a, aepal ue e le pael-l a Uz pe ee eaevelp.

78. Gigon/Guyer: Liner Museumin Appenzell (1998)

te ale-lke k pe e eel plae a e ual aua e-e e e ape eueu a ve e appea-ae a ake e u.

9.Peter Zumthor: Kunsthin Bregenz (1997)

ii a ueu ue,Zu pla epee laealuee. te ell l a vaue kl e uue.

10.Steven Holl ArchitecBuilding, Kansas City (2

w ee ale u e aeal la aae, sevueu exe eake a a u ul eve a pe eeave pupe.

1112. Tadao Ando: KoshHouse in Ashiya (1981)te ee uae A eal ue aeve e a-lke e lae uluue ee appae la l

13. GLASSX AG, DietrichSchwarz: apartmetns o

citizens in Domat/Ems (2

e alue aaae eeal , de saz ueal ae e eaae pal e ujee ea au a ea ue .

PHOTOS:2/3rICHArDWESTON


9/634

baB Jakob Schoo.

Saces ae eaded as the epitome o sacebeat and eetin impessions. Nevetheless, the aethe basis o how we peceive the wold: a jone tothe saces o the eath and what lies beneath them.

PHOTO:DAVIDMAISEL


10/636

sa ma their ineracion wih ligh provide u wih more hree quarer of our enory experience, bu alo the energy that we lve and feed on. in nature aechnology, urface ac a communicaion inerfp a ma xa ma a . t mam a a a apaak , a xa

b a a m a

m a aa aa p a ak, a he urface of naure and hape hem according wihe. swimui are modelled on harkkin, dir-r a a a a-ma pafm app . A am m, a a a a formed by human being ome cieni enviaga m am aam. Am a a a a a a

a, m a appa a mma appa. b a pa a , a , a pa. s a k a a .


Previous page

David Maisel: The Lake Project

9816-11, 2002. te ea lee. eae, oeLake cala a ee uea a eev uppl kae L Aele. ta,e l aae e e lake, l ee, a eee lak ve, l-e a pule ue e e aea a ve e.

Opposite Aeae galax. P e

hule spae telepe.

PHOTO:NASAJPL


11/638

It took galileo galilei onl a small appaa-ts to chane the hman peception o thewold. In 609, the Italian mathematicianand astonome tned one o his st sel-bilt pespective lasses telescopes wewold call them toda to the moon . In doin

so, he obseved that the eaths companionwas b no means the smooth, immaclatesphee it shold have been accodin to thetheoies o Aistotle, which, despite theipaan oiin, medieval Chistian societ stilladheed to. In his scipte On the Heavens,the geek philosophe had otlin ed a concept

o the wold that was to be valid o nealtwo millennia: the eath, as the immovablecente o the nivese, is sonded b con-centic stata: st, the o elements (eath,

wate, ai and e), and then the seven plan-eta sphees: the moon, Vens, Mec,the sn, Mas, Jpite and Satn. om themoon onwads the nivese consisted o anetheeal, indestctible qintessence, lite-all: the th element o sbstance, whichis onl capable o movin in pe ect cicles.As the consist o qintessence, all celestialbodies mst, b nate, possess a peectand immaclate spheical shape.1

In the liht o this, galileos ndin s wee

alamin news: he discoveed ond ot that

the moons sace was ed and ll ocates, 3,000 o which on the visible side o

the moon alone have so a been identiedand named. (This newl discoveed textehas nothin to do with the appaent aceo the moon which can be seen with thenaked ee. It is omed b o dak patchesthat wee pobabl cased b lae ows o

basalt lava some o billion eas ao). gal-ileo went on to moe discoveies that madeAistotles theoies obsolete; most nota-bl, Jpites moons and the snspots. Not

even the sn, which had been consideed animmateial soce o divine liht b medie-val scholas, tned ot to be no moe thana ock o e, as Anaxaoas had called it2,000 eas beoe.

galileos ndins not onl pecipitatedthe Catholic chch into the deepest cisisit had eve known, bt also maked the tan-sition om the tanscendental and msti-cal concept o liht o the Middle Aes tothe scientic liht o the Moden Aes.Posected b the Inqisition, galilei had toabje his heetical teachins in 633. Theact that his witins emained on the Vati-cans index o obidden books o two moe

centies, and that galileo was onl ofciall

ehabilitated b Pope John Pal II in 992,is emakable. It shows the impotance that

the Chch attibted to the intepetationo liht: i liht no lone oiinated om adivine soce bt om poane matte, andi heaven was no lone a sphee stictl sep-

aated om the Eath, then whee woldgod be? Besides thei obvios ea o los-in the monopol o intepetin heavenand eath, the cles eaction to galileosndins also hihlihts a eneal poblem o

hman peception: seein is not sfcient,on its own, o econition. reconition hap-

pens when a visal imae is compaed tothe ndestandin o thins that is inhe-ent in the hman bain. This insiht is notnew; the philosoph o Plato, Aistotles

teache, was alead based on this dalito phenomena (which ae accessible to osenses) and ideas (which ae onl accessi-ble to the hman intellect). Plato claimedthat nivesal ideas exist apat om andpeceded all paticla thins. O lack onivesal ideas also inhibits o ndestand-

in o phenomena, as the eactions o man

o galileos contempoaies showedid not believe his obsevations, aless the conclsions he dew om th

onl becase the consideed themtiall daneos, bt becase theidea that miht have made the otions t thei ndestandin o thMoe ecent evidence hihlihts thsit o both ideas and phenomena o

peception: people who ae blind oand then ain eesiht thoh ation ate havin lived in the dak oten have a had time leanin to mo thei new sense. The ma seeoms and colos, bt cannot intep

meanin ntil the have veied tception b othe senses, most notasense o toch.


See Ath Zajonc: Catchin the LihOxod univesit Pess 993, p. 73

1

Opposite Da vid Maisel: Terminal

Mirage 980-1, 2003

dav mael a ee pap- e laape e gea salLake Ua, UsA e 2003. tee al a ue eale, e la e pupe e uje pape; eee ae ae e e -uall pea uee uae e aual eve.

chAnging ViEwso thE worLd

PHOTO:DAVIDMAISEL


12/6320 D&A SPrINg 2007 ISSuE 05

350 eas ate the discove o the moonscates, mans st tips into space makeda no less impotant tnin point in histo.o the st time, o planet was seen as awhole not onl b means o maps, lobesand othe models, bt with the naked ee.The st imaes o Eath om space, as aniqe wate planet with no visible eo-political bondaies, an inteconnectedseamless whole, ave people a sense oboth the beat and the vlneabilit othei home. Since then, satellites have ath-eed a he amont o data abot the Eath

om veetation to ai polltion, and eventhe eoloic omations beneath the plan-ets sace. Websites like goole Eath have

enabled s to tavel to almost an iven siteon eath and visall exploe it in detail. How-

eve, despite the apidl inceasin amonto scientic evidence, models, and imaes(which, to make thins wose, we oten pe-ceive as theatenin), we ae ndin it hadto om a coheent idea o the Eaths sace

and o the temendos (and nowadas oten

man-made) oces that shape and chane it.This becomes evident when we look at thewoks o sch photoaphes as David Mai-sel. His black maps o hihl contaminatedaeas sch as the geat Salt Lake in utah, oOwens Lake in Calionia, show s ed,blisteed textes in ed, black and white that

we nd had to intepet althoh the ae,to a lae extent, man-made. What is oii-

nall peceived as beatil sddenl tnsinto somethin epellent when we becomeawae o what we ae actall seein. Theond is bleedin. A ed ive cts a paththoh a bleached valle, windin towada lake that is no lone thee. Seen om theai, the ive and its d temins appeaothe-woldl, wote Diana gaston abot

Maisels Lake Poject seies in the maa-zine Apete.2Maisel himsel descibes hiswok on the bonda between beat anddestction as ollows: I became inteested

in makin imaes that cold be hash o con-ontational, while continin to maintainthei omal eleance and emotional eso-nance. I bean to conside the photoaphso Black Maps as eleies o lost landscapes[....]. Viewed om the ai, vesties o the lake

appea as divese as a ive o blood, a mico-chip, a bisected vein, o a alaxs map. Ideath is the mothe o beat, as WallaceStevens wote, then The Lake Poject imaes

ma seve as the lakes atops. It is this con-tempoa vesion o the sblime that I ndmost compellin. 3

Wheeas David Maisel docments thedestction o the Eaths skin thohbeatil imaes taken om aa, the Bit-ish sclpto And goldswoth takes thissame skin as a statin point o his otensmall-scale and tempoal inteventionsthat eqie s to look closel. B sinmateials om the site and caell ea-anin them, goldswoths wok doesnot tell s abot ecoloical cataclsms btabot the silent, lon-tem and oten sb-ctaneos chanes that o cltivated land-scape ndeoes. Accodin to goldswoth,

nate is intensel beatil, and at the same

time ve nnevin, and at times deeplihtenin. yo eel it i ove eve stood

in a wood that has been blown down atea ston wind, o thoh an incedible acto nate. yo eel that as soon as o o ot

to the land, evewhee o o thins aedead, decain, allen down, owin, alive.Thees this incedible vio and ene and

lie. And its sometimes ve difclt to deal

with. I wold hope that I dont have a kind o

omantic view o nate. I do eel the beat

o it, o se. Bt its a beat thats nde-witten b exteme eelins. 4

Small scale o lae scale, both Maiselsand goldswoths woks have the powe to

eectate lastin chanes in the wa thatwe peceive o envionment, and pobablin o attitde to it. Inteestinl, neithe othe two will sa that the woked towadsthis eect on the viewe. Its not the inten-tion o m wok, bt it does pime peopletowads envionmental isses,, goldswo-th sas. I dont know how it does that, owh, bt it does. Im happ o that to hap-pen. Bt i that became the intention o thewok, then the wok wold be weakened. 5Wheeas Anne Wilkes Tcke wites abotDavid Maisel: While [he] abhos mankindsmismanaement o the envionment, hisdivin inteests ae aesthetic and philo-sophical. A seios stdent o the ideas aswell as the at woks o robet Smithson,Maisel, like Smithson, qestions the poc-ess o peception and knowlede. 6

tErrA incognitA:thE UnKnown PLAnEt

Opposite Sakura-Jima volcano,

Kyushu, Japan

te eu au eelue e u plaeu e uae a eee e eal plaea a e ak e eau. t aelle aa p-ap e elavelu sakua-Ja vla aeupe a peula e a Kaa a a ee -uall ave e 1955.

http://www.davidmaisel.com/ne_bl_lake_ino.asphttp://www.davidmaisel.com

/inopaes/in_his.htmlQoted in an aticle b Olive Lowenstein;http://www.esence.o/esence/

isses/lowenstein207.htmhttp://www.esence.o/esence/isses/lowenstein207.htmhttp://www.davidmaisel.com/ne_bl_tem_ino.asp

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13/6322

In he book Skin. Sace, Sbstance + De-sin, Ellen Lpton wites: Skin is a mltila-

eed, mltippose oan that shits omthick to thin, tiht to loose, lbicated tod, acoss the landscape o the bod. Skin,a knowlede-athein device, esponds to

heat and cold, please and pain. It lacksdenitive bondaies, owin continosl

om the exposed saces o the bod toits intenal cavities. It is both livin anddead, a sel-epaiin, sel-eplacin mate-ial whose exteio is senseless and inetwhile its inne laes ae sh with neves,lands, and capillaies. 7

B aea, skin is the laest oan in eat-

est pat o the hman bod; it is esponsi-ble o o sense o toch, bt also o othemeans o commnication with the envion-ment: Skin can blsh and blanch, et oose

pimples and sweat, o ble with cold, edwith ane, o metaphoicall een withenv. Skin commnicates in the om o phe -omones, homonal sinals believed to beeceived b specialized cells in the nose.8Skin potects the hman bod peciselbecase its otemost lae consists o dead,

compessed cells that ae led toethewith lipids into a wate-epellent lae. Pe-haps its sinle most ascinatin popet isits capacit o sel-healin: i skin is dam-aed, sca collaen oms within the wond,and svivin epidemal cells miate omthe edes o a wond towads the cente

to help heal it.Skins eaction to snliht is ambi-

os, and in this ambiit it eects mansmental attitde towads the sn, which hasalwas been a mixte o attaction and ea.

The colo o skin (i.e. its deee o dak-ness) depends on the amont and tpe othe piment melanin in the skin, which is

detemined b o enes, bt also inenced

b the level o uV adiation to which we aeexposed. We all know the eects that thisentails: ate a ew das o modeate expo-se to the sn, we et a sn tan. Besides,anthopoloist Nina Jablonski and geoeChaplin have discoveed that when hmanindienos people have miated to die-ent latitdes, the have caied with thema sfcient ene pool so that within a tho-sand eas the skin o thei descendants has

tned dak o white to adapt to the level ouV adiation the enconteed thee.9

Melanin has a twoold nction besidesdeteminin o skin colo: it shields thelowe pats o o skin om excessive uVadiation, which cases the skin to ae moe

apidl and even dispts the snthesis oVitamin B. On the othe hand, ltavioletliht is essential o the podction o vita-min D in o bod, which in tn povides the

means wheeb we absob calcim om o

ood in o diestive sstem.Skin is also the canvas onto which each

clte pojects its own conceptions obeat and sexal attaction. All o theseae sbject to chane ove time and alsova between dieent ops within aclte. In most contempoa westensocieties, a health sn tan is consideedattactive enoh to cate o a wholeindst o sn stdios. In medieval Eope

and in China, on the othe hand, peasants

and othe otdoo wokes had dak skin.The aistocac theeoe valed pale skinas an indicato o thei wealth and otenelied on lead o othe poisonos inedi-ents in cosmetics to ceate the lstoswhite complexion seen in potaits omthe sixteenth-cent onwad. 10

Likewise, othl, immaclate skin has

been a beat ideal in societies sinit. It has been ceaselessl popathe cosmetics indst, and b advphotoaph with its meticlos in o cinkles, spots, hai and poesothe hand, eve since the das o Leda Vinci and De (who ae claimedbeen the st atists to paint ealtaits o eldel pesons) atists haascinated b what happens to skinaes, is damaed, o aticiall alte

In ecent eas, cosmetic se

enabled s to speed p the adaptatesses that Jablonski and Chaplin diswithin a matte o a ew eas, patiebe tned om black to white baticial means, as a pominent pesthe pop wold has shown. Tisse en

a discipline that aims at the deveo bioloical sbstittes that estotain, o impove tisse nction o oan,11 is consideed a eld o manomic owth in the medical secto.

mAttEr And mEtAPhor:thE hUmAn sKin


Opposite Gary Schneider:John In Sixteen Parts, 1995

A a pa, gasee ee eue ua ae. Alu e e p e ae ee, e vualve e a veallpue e uu e eve.

Ellen Lpton (ed.): Sk. Suace, Sub+ Desg. Smithsonian Instittion / PAchitectal Pess 2002, p. 23Jennie Tobias in: Ellen Lpton (ed.):Suace, Substace + Desg, p. 44www.bs.ed/depatments/chem/

leontis/chem447/PD_les/Jablonski_skin_colo_2000.pdhttp://en.wikipedia.o/wiki/Semiotics_o_Ideal_BeatLane, r & Vacanti JP, Tssue egeScience 260, 920-6; 993

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PHOTO:gArySCHNEIDEr



The inence o hman skin and othe nat-al skins on technolo, desin and achi-tecte is maniold, anin om its eoticappeal, its exibilit and its wam, sot toch

to its abilities to adapt to tempeate andlihtin levels. Ellen Lpton wites: Con-tempoa desines appoach the saceso podcts and bildins as similal com-plex, ambios oms. Manacted skinsae ichl esponsive sbstances that mod-late the meanin, nction and dimension othins.12 Even the sel-healin popeties oskin have, to a cetain deee, alead beenadopted in moden technolo, sch as ato-mobile lacqes that can heal small scatches

de to thei viscos, athe than solid, consist-

enc. Anothe example is sel-healin skins o

pnematic stctes, whose inside is coated

with a thin lae o polethane oam. When

the membane is pncted, the ai pesseinside the pnematic chambe oce s the Puoam into the ap, ths closin it. This mecha-

nism, which was deived om a simila poc-ess in the cell tisse o lianas, povides neal00% aitihtnes o leakaes p to 5 mmin diamete.

Clothin and bildins have oten beencalled the second and thid skins o man-kind, whose task it is to potect the hmanbod. Ideall, the shold theeoe possesssimila capacities o adaptation as o skin.One wa to achieve this task is the devel-opment o intellient mateials, which canevesibl chane thei popeties whenthe ae exposed to cetain inences likeheat, liht, pesse, electical o maneticelds, o chanes in the chemical composi-tion o thei sondins. o example, Ital-ian textile eninees have developed a abic

made o a shape memo allo (SMA) which

cases shit sleeves to atomaticall oll pat a cetain tempeate. Peltie elementscan be inteated into clothin to povideactive coolin when an electic cent isapplied to them. The Ameican No Con-tact jacket ends o potential attackes bpodcin a tension o some 80,000 voltson its sace when a btton is pessed. 13

Smat technolo also has its moe poeticsides, thoh: The +r Hs T-shits, devel-

oped b the Cte Cicit compan om Ital,

come in pais and commnicate amonstthem via bletooth technolo. When a pe-son toches his o he T-shit in a cetainplace, inteated powe cicits in the pat-nes shit will podce a simila movemento h in the same place.

In achitecte, as in ashion desin, theskin analo toches pon two aspects: theaesthetic and the nctional. In a book abo tthe geman eninee Wene Sobek, Wene

Blase compaes the inhabitant o a tadi-tional bildin to a hemit cab that chanesits dwellin wheneve it has become too s mall

o too lae, o othewise inadeqate. Blasethen asks: Bt is it iht to se sch nchan-

in methods o bildin constction in awold that itsel is constantl chanin? [...]the phsical popeties o o bildinsemain constant, althoh intenal and exte-

nal envionments pemanentl imposechanes on them.14 Blases book was pb-lished in 999, and thee has been conside-able development in bildin technolosince then. Nonetheless, the visiona con-cept o an ideal bildin skin that Sobek devel-

oped in the 90s is still elevant to da. rathethan considein the bildins skin as onemlti-nctional all-onde, Wene Sobek

sested that, ve mch like hman skin, itshold be made p o hihl specialised, mono-

nctional cells that peom dieent tasks,

sch as liht tansmission, ene absoption

o ventilation. Dependin on bdet and avail-

abilit, the cells cold be podced on die-ent levels o technical sophistication, anin

om mechanicall o electomechanicallopeated elements to those that nction ona chemical and mico-bioloical level. Accod-

in to Wene Sobek, adaptive sstems andmechanisms will be a natal pat o o dail

lie in a ew eas. Atomatic, sel-leanindistance contols o atomobiles ae alead

available toda. Adaptive cadiac pacemak-es, which do not wok at a constant e-qenc bt eact to extenal phsioloical

inences like movement, ae ndement, as ae active postheses and iwith senso nctions and actatothe bildin tade, adaptive sstems

edction and lasses with vaiatansmission will be as common as th

maniplation o oces, deomativibations, especiall in liht-weibeain stctes.

In 2004, Wene Sobek and hant Maks Holzbach om the ILtte at Stttat univesit consthe expeimental pavilion Pal tostate the potential o adaptive min bildins. Pal is a cocoon-likweiht stcte with a skin made ios laes o membanes. These tdaliht as well as emittin a ticliht, povide themal inslation thinnovative ceamic mateial, and sheat om the sns as in a phasemateial (phase chane mateials a

encapslated paaf ns that se exc

to tn om solid to liqid, so the cthe heat ene withot chanin t

peate). Pals skin is onl .4 cent

thick, bt eqivalent to the themo a 5 centimete, massive wall. TPals constction is athe low-tsements o its skin bein linked onco tape and ths capable o bein m

o dismonted manall.15

mAn-mAdE sKins AndintELLigEnt mAtEriALs

Below Corpo Nove / Grado ZeroEspace / Mauro Taliani:

Oricalco, 2001

paula , a a-u all eave a evelpea aue a peeeeape e e epeaueae. A a eul, e a e pae avae ll up leeve aua-all a a ea epeaue.

Ellen Lpton (ed.): Sk. Suace, SubDesg, p. 23Axel ritte: Smat Mateals. Bikhla 2007, p. 6-9Wene Blase: Wee Sobek. At oeeg. Bikhse Vela 999, p. 5

http://www.tec2.ch/pd/tec2_420052942.pd

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PHOTO:grADOZErOESPACE



Most achitects will know Adol Loos con-tempt o onament, which he descibes asa sin o deeneation and immoalit in hisessa Onament and cime om 908. One

o the examples that Loos ses to illstatehis point is the heav tattooin o nativepeople, whom Loos consides not to haveevolved to the same levels o moals and civ-ilisation as moden man. Loos wote: Themoden man who tattoos himsel is a cim-inal o a deeneate, and attibted similavales to heavil onamented achitecte.99 eas late, this attitde has obvioslchaned: These das the tattoo sits mlin (o on) the bosom o hip celebit clte,spoted b the likes o Anelina Jolie, gwn-

eth Paltow and spemodel Linda Evane-lista, wote Penilla Holmes in an exhibition

eview on tattoo at in 200.16 She contin-es, Whats moe, the tattoo emains a de-

antl individalist band in the ace o lobal

mass consmeism. The same can be saido contempoa achitecte, into whichonament has etned with vio. This can

be attibted, amonst othes, to two phe-nomena. istl, thee is the developmento new manactin pocesses that allowthe economic podction o onamentedsaces in lot size one (an indispensableciteion i saces ae to constitte a de-antl individalist band). And secondl, the

tendenc towads onament has to do witha new pemeabilit o bondaies between

achitecte and othe elds o at.As a conte-state to onament,

Adol Loos stessed the aesthetics o pemateials sch as the wam ain o woodo natal stone and the lste o metalthat slowl and aciosl coves itselwith a lae o patina. A simila movement,which in man was pesisted to this da,

stated in the late 80s, when achitectsbean to oppose the semantic extemeso both deconstctivism and Post-Mod-enism. Wheeas these had almost entielbeen obsessed b om, a new eneation o

achitects especiall Swiss stated to be

concened abot mateials and thei inte-action with the site and its specic da-liht sitations. As Andeas rb pointedot, this new mateialism, late temedminimalist, was ml ooted in the Cal-vinist tadition o Switzeland. It investedlabo and mone into the ostentatiosnon-show o onament and detail athethan into the ostentatios displa o wealth.

Inteestinl, a distinctl pistic, sensal

vaiation o minimalism became the com-mon copoate achitecte o most lx- bands om Amani to Pada om themid-90s onwads. The companies desieo ndestatement and a msem-likeatmosphee to pesent thei oods aetwo easons o this development. Anothedivin oce was the act that the ash-ion indst, which had b then had aleadevolved into a beat indst, oeincosmetics and accessoies, had becomeobsessed with the pit even o its achi-tectal skins. In his essa An Alabas-te skin om 993, Dtch achitect WielAets pondeed ove this inticate ela-tionship between pit and ealit, whichhe consideed analoos to the dalit o

achitectal ideas (i.e. desins) and biltobjects: Achitecte ma be consideeda desie o pit, a stivin o peection.The pincipal colo white maks a pocessin which the ndecidable is espected: it isnot a qestion o meaninl o meanin-less. The whiteness o newl allen snowin the monin liht, the white o a peect

skin, the white o pape on which the desin

will be sketched white is evewhee andma be consideed the colo o oiin a ndbeinnin [...] Achitecte is nblemished.Its entie loic isks somethin that is oonl shot dation. It appeas onl to dis-appea. [...] It pesents s bie with esh-ness and ntaintedness, onl to lose thosepopeties pecisel b oein them to s.Achitecte is theeoe a between, a mem-

bane, an alabaste skin, at once opaqe and

tanspaent, meaninl and meaninless,eal and neal. To become it sel, achitec-te mst lose its innocence; it mst accept

a violent tansession. It can onl becomepat o the wold b entein into maiae

with its sondins.

AdoL Loos Vs.AngELinA JoLiE: PUrityAnd ornAmEnt inhUmAn ciViLisAtion

Opposite SANAA: Dior Omote-sando, Tokyo, 2003

te d ap e eae sAnAA a e e-ual al aa a e aua-ue ave ee uueelve e e 1990. teeal a aae a la ell a a e alaae lae ee el a e.

http://www.atnet.com/maazine/eviews/holmes/holmes7-23-0.asp

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When the bothes Lmie showed oneo thei st-eve motion pictes in Paisin 895 a post tain entein a station the viewes eacted to this new expeienceas the wold have done in eal lie: as thetain appoached the camea, the ecededom the pojection sceen and, in somecases, even ed om the oom. (In thosedas, movies wee mostl shown in cas oestaants). Toda, it wold be had, i notimpossible, o an motion picte to po-dce simila eexes in the adience. Peo-ple have leant to cope with the medim olm, as the have done with vitall evemedim the have been oeed in the past.

Withot dobt, howeve, movin

imaes have alteed visal peception inthe 20th cent. ench philosophe PalViilio claims that even the notion o tans-paenc has chaned 17: om showin what

is behind a sace to showin what theaphic desine o the lm diecto andhis cameamen want s to see. Jst con-side a TV imae: evebod knows it con-sists o closel jxtaposed dots o ed, een

and ble liht on a plane o lass bt whenwe watch TV, we do not ocs on this act,no on the act that it is a pane o lass thatwe ae lookin at.

In his books The Lost Dimension andThe Vision Machine om the eal 990s,Pal Viilio complains that mankind has lostits taditiona l immediac o vision o, in othe

wods: its peception o the mateial ealito thins, to a mediated ealit that ollows a

cinematic loic. Accodin to Viilio, we aeno lone see-es, bt esee-es, who onlpeceive what the ee o the camea o theanimation atist has seen beoe them. In the

case o moden vision machines, the owo natal liht has been eplaced b a ow

o electons, and in compte aphics, even

the diection o seein is evesed: athethan on the as o liht emitted b soceso liht, a-taced imaes ae based on(vital) as o siht that stat om theee and ae eected, diacted o absobed

b dieent saces. Moe than two tho-sand eas ao, Aistotle tied to explainhman eesiht with a simila (bt late dis-caded) model, accodin to which the eeemits minte as o liht that liht p thesondins and ths allow s to see.

In contempoa ban envionments,o ee has little oppotnit to contem-plate thins an moe. rathe, it is con-stantl bein caht b imaes, colos,

and apid movements. One smptom othis ace o attention was the emeenceo media acades and the polieation ovideo sceens in achitectal space. Opeat-

in accodin to the pinciple o bi imaes,little wods, eat eects 18, these sacesappeal to o innate oientation eex, amechanism o svival that immediatelmakes s tn o attention to an object ino eld o siht that is lae o othewiseconspicos and moves. Video sceens andmedia acades ae, so a, the last step in apoessive debondin o bildins skinsom thei content that has taken place inthe last ew eas. With thei dnamic ochanin lihts and movin imaes, thehave added a new level o complexit to obildins, and povided achitects with new

means to ceate atmosphee and meanin-l inteaction with the se bt also to -

the enhance the inomation oveload that

is omnipesent in o envionment.Las Spboeks illminated D-Towe

in Doetinchem/Nethelands, whose colochanes accodin to the moods and eel-

ins o the towns inhabitants (whoae assessed via a website), is an exa

a plal dialoe between bildins

pblic. unlike taditional media aca

towe and simila installation do nan nctions o tells s an stoiethan the ones we tell them. Moe tthin the ae expeimental set-exploe how new commnication cae appopiated b the pblic.

In most cases, howeve, the sim

ience o a new medim will attact a

mainl while the medi m it is new. ul

the qalit o the content and the dwell as its potential to e nhance theo o lives, becomes moe impota

notion o qalit, eadin contentle to do with hih o low cltecase; moe than anthin it has topatible with the expectations o the

the possibilities that the medim o

sEEing And rE-sEEing:A Ew rELEctionson ProJEctions

Opposite NOX / Q.S. Serajn:D-tower, Doetinchem, 2004

t lae ulpue ae lu a e e e aa, eee a iee uve. i e-a, La spuek, eee e a a eveal epa aa: a eeje epee a vualpul pae a ve f-ul ap.

Pal Viilio: See, oe zu see.Benteli Vela Ben 99Wolan Lanzenbee: Medien zwHimmel nd Ede; see http://eissewolan-lanzenbee.de/lmoamediaassade.html

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In the pecedin paaaphs, saces andskins have been discssed nde a twooldaspect: as commnication inteaces andas phsical bondaies. Two lessons can beleant om the examples qoted above.

istl, saces do not necessail indi-cate ndelin stctes, o the phsicalpopeties o objects, an moe. Polltionma seem beatil when seen om aa,black skin ma be tned to white, thinswith a had look ma tn ot to be sot, and

what looks like a solid mason wall ma inact be onl a centimete-thick claddin onthe bildins sace.

Secondl, sin science and technolowe have pt oselves in a sitation whee

we can chane the ea ths skins adicallto make them coincide with o ideas, athe

than adapt o ideas to the phenomena weobseve, as galileos contempoaies had to.The esponsibilit that this imposes on s isobvios. Onl citical awaeness will allows to distinish eal innovation om mee

special and cosmetic chanes, and to pt

this innovation to se in a benecial wa.alse mths and adlent stotellin aebiqitos in o mateial wold, incldinachitecte. The eat Danish novelistHans Chistian Andesen knew this whenhe wote his pobabl best-known aitale,The Empeos New Clothes. The eal cleo this sto is not meel that the two tai-tos petend to be weavin the most beati-l and exqisite clothes o the empeo, bt

that the petend that onl those lackin inintellience wold be nable to see them. Inthe end, it is a child that blts ot the tth:

Bt the Empeo has nothin at all on!Sometimes, insiht ma be ained b

ve simple obsevations even in a timeo seeminl omnipotent technolo. And

it ma be helpl at times to ask some vesimple qestion with the same, childlikescepticism and stbbonness: Do we wantto spend lae amonts o ene on makin

o (second and thid) skins adaptive andattactive? O cannot the same be achievedb astonishinl simple means in the samewa? What se is the beatill desinedcoachwok o a ca, o a shin lass acade, i

the machine behind it wastes too mch, o

ns on the won el? And what happensto these skins when the ae shed? Will the

end p on bbish dmps o become pat o a

cadle to cadle sstem whee evethin is

eccled o esed, and nothin is lost?We ma not et simple answes to these

qestions in o hihl complex wold; thewill most oten be o the well, es andno kind. Bt these qestions ma help semain te to the pinciples we once dewp. Becase as the Ameican achitectJames Wines wites: The twent-st cen-t ae o ecolo is a citical point o tan-sition and connection. It has aived o some

achitects like a plae on the conscience,theatenin thei entenched belies, stlis-tic peeences, and habital wok methods.

o othes, it has become the evoltionaand esoce-savin oppotnit to develop

a new technolo. o moe contemplativeachitects, it has been seen as the bein-nin o a deepe awaeness o the eathand a case o e-thinkin the ondations

o achitecte b blendin a t, philosoph,technolo, and nates inteated ss-tems. While this thid op is potentiallthe most podctive, the challenes it acesae dantin. It means conontin, qes-tionin, and pobabl havin to ltimatelembace concepts that endane the insti-ttional amewoks o eliion, econom,

and politics; not to mention most thinsthe bildin ats have been abot since theadvent o the indstial evoltion. 19

While this cleal denes the challenes

that lie ahead o all o s, James Wines alsoidenties the pitalls o the new bave een

wold: ... the tems een and sstainable

have become so biqitos and eneic that,

whateve potenc o leitimac the oncehad a ew decades ao, can now be deemedwhat wite and edito, Cath Ho, has iden-tied as een wash. It appeas that eve-one [...] has embaced the een manta asevidence o thei social concen and politi-cal coectness. [...] geen has become thenew good Hosekeepin seal o appoval -

assined to vitall evethin om bild-in mateials to ceeal packain, om toilet

pape to condom wappes.20 James Wines

call o a new scepticism towads envion-mental isses ma seem adical to some.Howeve, iven the chanes in the last eweas, it ma hadl come as a spise. Aconstant, citical assessment o what isbeneath the skins o o mateial wold ismabe what is needed most in o das.

AVAiLAbiLity AndrEsPonsibiLity

James Wines: Gee Actectue.Taschen Vela, 2000James Wines in:[ak] magaze 2-2007,eb 2007

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M. Casati, what did the clte o ew p in ando edcation teach o abot liht?

What popeties o liht have o discoveed o-

sel that ascinate o?

In Ital, whee I was bon and ew p, people oten have to potect them-selves om the liht athe than o ot and nd it. The windows in the thickhose walls ae sall ail small and almost alwas have some om o p o-tection om the liht, like liht olle blinds o ctains. Liht is seen theemoe as a poblem than as a esoce. In the conties noth o the Alps, theopposite is the case. In Pais, I live in a bildin that is smbolic o liht andbihtness: Le atte ciel n , the st skscape bilt in ance b EdoadAlbet. Its distinishin eates ae its lae lass onts, liht-lookin wallstctes and windows that open otwads. Despite this, I live down at thebottom on the second stoe acin noth -west and one o m ooms doesnthave an windows at all (as the skscape is at the bottom o the Bive val-le, the lowe oos at the b ack dont have windows). This miht sond likean oxmoon, bt on the othe hand it denitel stems om m cis alpine andtansalpine doble lie.

I nd that this eoaphical and cltal divide is also eected in envi-onmental policies and the dieences in bildin desin between the nothand soth o Eope. One o the most inteestin eseach pojects o the -te o achitects will cetainl be the valoisation o liht in the sothenlatitdes and how it can be sed atisticall and economicall in sho t, howto see liht as a esoce athe than a p oblem.

An impotant aspect o m eseach concens the inomative popeties oliht. unlike cetain basic eates that aise om the inteaction betweenliht and matte, these ae hihe popeties that ae dependent on the pes-ence o vaios objects in the envionment and on how these objects eectthe liht and conseqentl ceate dieent and mlti-aceted pattens. In mmost ecent std, shadows pla an impotant pa t within these inomativestctes. The contasts between liht and shadows ae a ve simple kindo inomation (on/o) and allow s to visall peceive a thee-dimensionalspace and the aanement o the object s in it.

In ode to econstct the wold we peceive, o ees pimail se theinomation that appeas at the bodes between sepaate saces. Thispeeence o the bodes has one decisive advantae: becase the liht inan envionment is neve distibted evenl, bt is almost alwas aded, i vi-sion samples the liht the awa om the bodes between saces, weeceive inomation that is less abot these saces and mch moe and in-deed pimail abot the sondin liht. As an example, the middle o apiece o white pape that is a consideable distance om a liht soce caneect less liht than the middle o a piece o black pape close to the liht.Howeve at the bodes between the white and black pap e, the sondinliht is distibted elativel evenl and allows a eliable (not absolte bt el-

ative) compaison o the saces.In the illstation b Adelson (opposite), the sqaes A and B eect ex-actl the same amont o liht. Howeve, o visal sstem is able to d iscontthe intensit o the shadow cast b the clinde and to adapt the colo osqaes A and B to the est o the c heqeed patten.

Shadows complicate o peception, becase o vision has to lean to di-

eentiate between a bode cased b liht (a shadow) and a bode that isindependent o liht (between a piece o white and a piece o black pape). Ithis wee not possible, we wold peceive shadows as pemanent chaacte-istics o an object. This occs, thoh ael, when the liht bode coincide s

with a dividin line that is independent o the liht. In this case, otal sstem is consed. This is wh Leonado advised othe paintedaw a line aond a shadows conto.

reseach into peceptal illsions (as demonstated above b theimae) is an impotant pat o the pscholoical std o peceptiobelieve that thee is an ode o pecedence o the sens es. Althophes have, o a lon time , been o the opinion that the sens e o tomost eliable, thee ae also tactile illsions matchin visal ones. centl, even the classication o the senses has been qestioned . Theliable citeia o the exact denition o a s ense. We do not knowbats hea shapes o see with thei eas. Dieentiation between tdepends on o commonsense ndestandin, bt this cetainl cascienticall based dieentiation.

Elizabeth Spelke o Havad, who made the most inteestin ndinsants concepts o an object, developed a esocel method o ndin how childen see and p eceive the mateial wold (which the ato vebalise becase o thei ae). When cononted with cetain sichilden ae spised, and this spise is intepeted as an indicati

act that eve child has pecise expectations. The peception o shan inteestin case, becase shadows (in contast to deams, o ae phsicall eal, bt ae still immateial (the ae made o notheason wh we do not have an inheent ndestandin o what a shdespite its ston peceptal salience, is possibl that the nmbe concepts available to eve one o s is elativel limited, and that to a shadow is, to a cetain extent, deived om o concept o an ocetainl te that small child en (nde the ae o one ea) teatlike objects and ae nable to peceive that the ae pojections o ph

o liht. unlike adlts, o example, the ae s pised when a shadowhen the object that casts the shadow is moved.

Most mths ae anchoed secel in the imaes and smbols othoht. That is wh eat vale is alwas attached to them, althohave a tansient nate and va slihtl om one clte to anothe.

ae oten a metaphoical soce o mths elated to the sol: like theshadows ae dependent on o bodies (bt not completel, since wate all, able to sepaate oselves om o shadows). A shadow is im

and looks like the peson who casts it, and so on and so oth. As loidea eeds o imaination, it will alwas be possible to eneate mshadows o ndestand sch mths as the ae expessed in othe c

yo have devoted a lae pat o o es each tothe misconceptions and deceptions that hmanpeception is sbject to. In o expeience, aethee an o o ve senses that ae moe easildeceived than othes?

In o book The Shadow Club, o wite abotthe hpothesis that childen seem to have an in-nate concept o what an object is, bt not o whata shadow (o a pojection) is. What do o conside

to be the easons o this dieenc e?

Mankind has taken a lon time to ndestand thenate o shadows, and o a lon time shadowswee associated with popla mths and spiitalbelies. What emains o these mths toda?

robeto caat is a senio eseache

at the National Cente o Scienticreseach (CNrS) in Pais, and is a vis-itin poesso at the I uAV unive-sit in Venice. He has pblished withA. Vazi o Colmbia univesit Holes

and Othe Specialities (MIT Pess,

994) and Pats and Places (MITPess, 999). His book The ShadowClub has been tanslated into sevenlanaes and awaded vaiospizes (Pemio iesole, Pemio Cas-tilioncello and Pix de La Science Se

Live). www.shadowes.o

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M. Maisel, what did the clte that o haveown p in, as well as o edcation, teach oabot the eath and its saces?

What did o own expeience teach o abotthe eaths sace?What have o ond ot that eath can tell s,which o had not known o seen beoe?

In 983, as an ndeadate stdent at Pinceton univesit, I accompaniedm poesso o photoaph, Emmet gowin, on a photoaphic expeditionto the volcano Mont Saint Helens. The eption o St. Helens was the dead-liest and most destctive volcanic event in the histo o the united States.It eleased ene eqivalent to the 27,000-ton atomic blast ove Hioshima.What captivated me at St. Helens was not onl the natal d isaste o the vol-cano, bt the eqall potent and cataclsmic ene with which the loinindst was cleacttin the aea. I was an east-coast kid, aised in the sb-bs o New yok, and I ond the biblical scale o this man-made destctioneall chillin and compellin, especiall when see n om the ai. This sense othe apocalptic sblime set the cose o m te wok.

M wok since that time has been compised, at least in pat, o an ono-in poject o aeial photoaphs o envionmentall impacted landscapes, abod o wok collectivel titled Black Maps. The imaes om Black Maps have

as thei sbject matte the ndoin o the natal wold b the wide-scale in-tevention o hman eots in the landscape, clte and nate meed ina kind o dizzin entopic descent. Indeed, lookin down om an aeial pe-spective onto these damaed sites, whee hman activit has eplaced thenatal ode, the views that I see ae simltaneosl beatil and hoi-in. M imaes ae meant neithe to vili no loi thei content, bt athe

to expand o notions o what constittes landscape o a epesentation olandscape in this, the ea o the post-natal wold.

M investiation o envionmentall impacted sites led m e to bein The Min-in Poject, m seies o aeial imaes o stip mines thohot the unitedStates. With the aeial views o these minin sites, I ond a sbject matteand a wa o seein that caied oth m ascination with the ndoin o thelandscape, in tems o both its omal beat and its envionmental politics.Witnessin the scain and tansomation o the eaths sace om above

led me to believe that sch deconstcted landscapes o stip m ines, canideleachin elds, and tailin ponds wee, in act, the contemplative adens oo time; the elt like sbteanean deam wolds demandin to be bohtinto the liht o da. I bean to conside m p ictes not simpl as doc mentso these blihted sites, bt as poetic endeins that miht somehow eectback the hman psche that made them.

Photoaphin om the ai inteested me not as a method pe se bt asa wa o seein the othewise nseeable and nimainable, and as a wa inwhich time and space cold et stn toethe. As a photoaphe wok-in om the ai, I am neve in the same place twice ths no imae can be e -peated. The liht is constantl chanin as well: as I cicle in the plane above

m sbject, m position elative to the sn is vaiable. The colos and omsthat eveal themselves actall shit om one ame to the next. So the wokto be done as a photoaphe in sch a sitation is one whee a kind o heiht-ened awaeness is necessa, in ode to espond to evethin (om, colo,texte, etc) bein in a state o x . The expeience is a steam o imaes andpossible amins that is not nlike the steam o consciosness itsel. Thoh

the aeial photoaphic pocess, motion ets dissected and eanimated.In o lietimes, the technoloies with which to imae have chaned ad-

icall man times ove. NASA imaes o the moon, o o the sace o Masthat wee st so ae and msteios, ae now downloadable on o laptops.

We can instantl access detailed satellite imaes o o own plaviews o the wa in Iaq to goole Eath imaes o o own homes. Tview has become pat o the visal lanae we speak.

The satellite view and the aeial view ae instance s whee photoa pocess o mappin, and o endein saces, and also an act o sveillance. Satellite imain and topoaphical maps have alwasoce o inspiation o me. Bt the map b necessit dies om tha

bein mapped. It is a paallel ealit. The photoaphe ga Winothe photoaph isnt what was photoaphed; its somethin else, a

The photoaph examines not ealit, bt existence. In a wa, photolike ceation mths, attempts to make sense o the wold.

The themes o sedction and betaal inom m thinkin and m nmbe o was, paticlal in Te Lake Poject. Wee constantlin o dail lives b whateve it is that is new and shin, the next conject to be desied the SuV, the iPod, the widesceen TV. And I thbetaed b these desies, and these objects, becase the dont is s existentiall, the jst ceate moe lonin. Simlt aneosl, wthe envionment as we thesh thoh it and se it p in a vacant ethose endless lonins that cannot be qelled.

M imaes sot o eplicate that pocess. The ae oeos ative, beatil and enain. And then, i one penetates the sace

these pictes, to nd ot that what is bein imaed is in act an abjsite, one that has been kind o osaken in a wa, then thees a kind obilt in to the pocess. Bt we as a soc iet ae complicit in the destthese zones. The sedction ields the bet aal.

So thee is a also a twinned pocess o s edction and betaal invviewe miht be sedced b the colos and oms o these imaes,in a sense, betaed once knowlede o the sbject becomes clea. Itthe wa we ae sedced, and ltimatel betaed, b a cetain level o

eism that exacts sch tolls on the envionment. yes, I want m Suwide-sceen TV and oop s! Thee oes the ozone lae! Imaine tha

As a bit o backond: Owens Lake, the sb ject oTe Lake Pojsite o a ome 50-sqae mile lake on the easten side o the Sietains. Beinnin in 93, the Owens rive was diveted into the OweAqedct to bin wate to the edlin de set cit o Los Aneles

the lake was essentiall depleted, leavin vast exposed mineal depsalt ats. Once the wate was one, hih winds sweepin thoh tdisloded micoscopic paticles om the d lakebed, ceatin cacdst stoms. In act, the lakebed became the hihest soce o pamatte polltion in the united States, emittin 300,000 tons o asmim, chomim, chloine, slph, and othe mateials annall. Thtation o mineals in what little wate emains in Owens Lake is so ahih that blooms o micoscopic bacteial oanisms eslt, stainimainin wate a deep, blood ed.

While I was enaed with this poject in 200, the EPA and theles Depatment o Wate and Powe, ed on b the geat BasiAi Polltion Contol Distict, bean tansomin the eion et aeot to edce the toxic dst stoms, a lae aea o the lakebed tned into the lood Zone. It is innitel complex, like the Lost Clantis isin om the oo o the lakebed. In act, ate Id complepoject, I ot down onto the sace o the lakebed and was able tcess to the contol oom cente that maintains and meases the saelative moiste om the 60,000 miles o iiation dip tbin tcosses the ood zone. Thee, on thei compte sceens, wee thia shapes o the ood zone that the imae with emote aeial phoand satellite mappin.

Evethin in the sites that I photoaph is m ediated the ae nlicant landscapes. Ths photoaphs in Te Lake Pojectae concea specic site that o Owens Lake bt the ae also as mch aboos new eoaphies o the psche, pimodial backdops to violdesolation, that come into bein om sch damaed sites . I dont wcibe a xed meanin to these imaes. The imaes emain metaphoentopic descent into post-moden space and time.

In Teminal Miae, a bod o wok inspied b robet Smithsonson the geat Salt Lake, Ive soht ot idded sites aond the pethe lake amon the thosands o aces o evapoation ponds, amid

yo Black Maps and Lake Poject photoaphsshow a somewhat distbin and deceptive aes-thetic. What looks beatil at st lance tnsot to be hoid and daneos when one looksclose. Do o see analoies to this in o evedalives and pattens o consmption?

dav mael was bon in New yokCit in 96. He eceived his BA om

Pinceton univesit, and his MAom Calionia Collee o the Ats,in addition to stdin at the gad-ate School o Desin at Havad uni-vesit. Maisels wok is epesented

in the pemanent collections o theMetopolitan Msem o At, the

Los Aneles Cont Msem o At,the Bookln Msem o At and oth-

es. His monoaphThe Lake Project(Nazaeli Pess, 2004), was selected

as one o the Top 25 PhotoaphBooks o 2004 b the citic Vince Al-etti. His second monoaph, Oblivion,

was eleased b Nazaeli Pess in2006. www.davidmaisel.com

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aced with destction and polltion, how do we as

hman beins eact in o expeience? Do most os take the viewpoint o the aeial photoaphe move awa om whee thins ht to whee themeel look beatil?

ita zone o the Tooele Am Depot that hoses and bns expied c hemicalweapons. Thee is no scale eeence in the imaes, and the acts o the photo-aphs become instead a seies o dizzin topes. Teminal Miae is also con-cened with the limits o ational mappin. The ids o evapoation ponds ae a

kind o tansessive achitecte, a labinth laid endlessl ove the sace o

the lake and its shoeline. The poject Teminal Miae ets its name om theact that the geat Salt Lake is, indeed , a teminal lake, with no natal otlets.The clastophobic, no-exit, existentialist aspect o this act spaked m c-iosit. And the wod miae seems to descibe the entie hallcinato qal-it o the expanse o the geat Salt Lake, the ninchin liht that illminatesit and that is eected om its s ace, and the manne in which this bod owok qestions the nate o siht and pec eption.

aced with destction o o Eath b o hands, the hands o civilisationand indstial poess, most viewes o m wok ae altenatel mstied,epelled, and alamed. Whethe the take m imaes as a call to action I can-not sa. Im not cetain the imaes ae intend ed to nction that diectl. Immotivated b the notion o discovein and evealin sites that miht othe-wise emain nknown o nseen be the cleact loin sites, stip mines,canide leachin elds, etc. M photoaphs o these sites ae intended to beeective o some sot o intenal, pscholoical state as mch as the aedocments o a paticla site. And, I conside msel a visal atist st andoemost as opposed, pehaps, to a photojonalist o a docmentaian. Immost inteested in makin imaes that have a kind o depth-chae, that havea cetain poetic o metaphoic impact visall.

At does has eve need to addess the political, and thee is also absoltel

an intended political chae to m pictes. (I dont know that one can spendseveal decades photoaphin sites o envionmental deadation withoteelin at least somewhat politicised b the pocess!) Bt in m wok, Im notinteested in pointin nes o lain blame. I eel that we as a societ, col-lectivel, have made these places. It isnt as simple as cond emnin this o thatcopoation, o example. M imaes ae ltimatel not docmenta imaes,the ae not pe in that espect. The ae theoetical, not catoaphic; theae moe inteested in exploin the nconscios than the objective. The havem thmbpint all ove them. The ae, in a sense, m editations.

Its the ovelappin ealms o ethics and aesthetics that occpies m in-

teest. So, thee is a kind o aesthetic activism o sbliminal activism in-volved, I sppose.

Which povides a nice se e into o qestion abot beat. I dont viewthe condition o beat as bein meel beatil. Beat has been seen aspoblematic o the visal ats in eneal becase we no lone tst beatas a seios means o investiation. Bt it can be. Beat wedes into atis-tic space a stct e o continosl imainin what we do not et know ondestand. o an object o an imae to poss ess beat does not mean thatit is empt o meanin o shallow. In act, beat c an be incendia. It can besbvesive. It can make s cine.

The kind o beat that inteests me most is one that possesses an ele-ment o teo an awl beat, beat not as a salve, bt as a weapon osots. It is an pdate, pehaps, o the nineteenth cent notions o the sb-lime, which seems to have somethin elevant to sa at o point in histoiht now. In his essa Notes on Beat, the citic Pete Schjeldahl wites

Nothin in itsel, beat ma be a mental solvent that dissolves somethinelse, meltin it into adiance.

Preceding double-page:

David Maisel: The Lake Project

9823-4, 2002

David Maisel: Terminal Mirage

206-7, 2003

Opposite:David Maisel: The Lake Project

9802-1, 2002

dav mael, e eu-ve u eepve eau aeal p a eap e aue peple aaue: ou epa -e eue elev a e lve e ae.

PHOTO:DAVIDMAISEL


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In m opinion, liht is alwas stimlatin and instils vio and enthsiasm.Biht das make hmans active, alet and condent. Althoh thee is no sci -entic explanation, the liht o eal monin enhances the aletness and ecep-

tive nctionin o the bain. To the naked ee, the liht at snset and snise isqite pleasant. The positive eect o liht, pa ticlal din the eal monin,

is seen on not onl hmans bt also on plants. Some o the photomophoenicand biochemical mechanisms in plants ae tieed jst beoe snise.

Din m childhood, I onl knew that the daliht is eeshin. As I ew pand ot involved in stdies on photosnthesis, I cold appeciate the popeties

o snliht in elation to plant nction. Visible li ht, as we see it, is mos tl inthe eion o 400 to 700 nm. Howeve, liht om sn also contains a sinicant

potion o lta-violet (700 nm). Plants see(peceive) liht mainl becase o two majo piments. T he st one is chloo-phll, the een piment that most o s a e well awae o. The second one isphtochome, which is not visible to the naked ee bt is esponsible o mosto the photomophoenetic eects, sch as phototopism, owein, seed e-mination and so on. It is qite ascinatin to std the mechanisms b whichthe plants peceive liht and tansmit the sinal. I was pesonall involved inndestandin how the sinal o liht is peceived and tansmitted deep into

the tisse. This phenomenon o tansdction o liht sinal is qite inteest-in as the pats o plants that do not eall see liht can still espond . It is alsocommon knowlede that plants adapt to the availabilit o liht b makin ad-jstments to the qantit and distibtion o chloophll, the een piment.o example, plants that ow nde intense liht sall have leaves that aethin, small and liht een in colo. In contast, plants own nde low lihto in shade have leaves that ae thick, bi and dak een.

The most pomisin soce ene o the eath is alwas the sn. Howeve,snliht can be sed o not onl ood bt also seveal othe pposes. It istheeoe essential that sola ene has to be conseved and sed ve e-cientl. In this diection, the attempts to identi novel enewable eneesoces hold the ke o seveal applications. At the same time, the con-smption o oil-based els shold be minimized to potect the envionmentand avoid the eenhose eect lobal wamin. The evoltion o lie oneath has been mainl de to the pedominance o sola ene as peceivedb hman ees and the leaves o een plants. It is possible that plants haveevolved with the een colo o chloophll in esponse to the sola spectm.A ston liht soce, othe than the sn, miht possibl have eslted in thepedominance o anothe colo and piment.

Photosnthesis eslts in the xation o inoanic cabon into oanic ca-bon which incldes cabohdates, lipids and poteins. The photosntheticactivit is dependent not onl on snliht bt also CO and oxen. One othe majo applications o photosnthetic capacit o plants appeas to b e itsabilit to x atmospheic CO. Howeve, photosnthetic assimilation o COb the plant kindom is nable to keep pace with the elease o CO into theatmosphee aisin om anthopoloical activit involvin both hmans andindsties. The seios poblem o elevated CO in the atmosphee is a sadealit, as ecods have established that the aveae CO concentation hasinceased om


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Ms. Jablonski, what did the clte that o haveown p in, as well as o edcation, teach oabot skin?

In o wok and eseach, have o ond this tobe te? What discoveies abot skin did o make

osel that ascinated o?

In o eseach so a, did o make an ndinson how hman beat ideals eadin skin va-ied in dieent hman cltes?

Most people, incldin me, leaned abot skin onl inomall in the cose oowin p. I neve eceived an omal edcation ab ot skin. I have simpl been

inteested in it o man eas, and have been condctin eseach on it.We take o skin o anted, even thoh it does man citicall impo-

tant thins o s bioloicall and cltall. I o stand back and obseve o

own lie and behavio, and the actions o people aond o, o can bein toain a bette appeciation o what skin does o s. Skin tells s a lot abot oneanothe. om jst lookin at someone, we can ain some idea o thei ae andstate o health om lookin at thei s kin. We also et some idea om s kin col-o abot whee a peson o thei ance stos ma have come om.

I we stop to think moe abot skin, we ealise that man o the most im-potant inteactions we have with one anothe ae mediated b o skin. Skinas the oan o toch povides one o the main po tals thoh which we com-mnicate with each othe and detect inomation abot the wold. Althohwe as pimates ae hihl visall oiented animals, toch is essential to onomal development and well-bein.

M own eseach has cented mostl aond the evoltion o skin colo, andthe most ascinatin discoveies I have made abot skin elate to its colo.The amont o piment we have in o skin evolved in elation to the levels o

ltaviolet adiation (uVr) in the snliht o the envionments in which oancestos lived. o those o s whose ancestos evolved in ve snn placesclose to the eqato, dakl pimented skin has evolved to pevent damaeto the bod om hih levels o uVr. Those people whose ancestos lived inplaces otside o the topics evolved lihte skin in ode to be able to acili-tate the podction o vitamin D in the skin b uVr . What is ascinatin to metoda is that moden people move aond ve qickl, at ates mch astethan an o o ancestos. We can tavel thosands o kilometes in a ewhos, and tanspot o bodies into sola envionments ve dieent omthose in which o ancestos lived. Bein hmans, we assme that jst bvite o bein cleve hmans evethin will be aliht. Well, sometimes,it is not. Liht-skinned peoples se seios bioloical poblems when thesbject thei bodies to intense snliht, especiall on a lon-tem basis. Simi-lal, dak-skinned peoples se othe bioloical poblems when the spendlon peiods o time otside o the topics becase thei bodies cannot makeenoh vitamin D om the uVr in the elativel weak snliht otside o thetopics. The lesson hee is that we cannot escape o biolo!

Beat ideals eadin skin va d amaticall om one clte to anothe. Awondel example that I enconteed ecentl concens eebows. In mostAmeican and Eopean contexts , women oom thei eebows so that the

ae cleal sepaated and neatl dened. Amon the uihs o westen China,women encoae thei eebows to be ll and inteconnected, so as to ceate

a damatic and expess ive accent ove thei entie ee aea. The even o as a

as to b a special ceam between thei ees to enc oae hai owth.In connection with skin colo, we also see eat dieences between cl-

tes in aesthetic choices. As an example, in Japan, women with ve pale skin(showin no sin o sn expose) ae consideed attactive and desiable be-case the liht skin cleal demonstates that the woman does not have towok otside and is likel to be o hih stats. In contast, in man Ameicanand Eopean conties, women with a health tan ae consideed moe at-

tactive becase thei tanned skin indicates health and leise time o doos. In both examples, the ideal is the same a woman o hiand leise bt the ideal appeaance is ve dieent becase oent histoies o the two eions.

Toda, ideals o beat based on skin ae beinnin to mee as tion o imae and advetisin bein to inence peoples aesthettions. In some cases, this is casin women to pse ideals o apthat ae both nealistic and nhealth.

The appeaance o hman skin plas an impotant ole in commnicase it tells s a lot abot a peson. As I mentioned ealie, the skinicates inomation abot a pesons ae and health. It also tells s athei phsioloical state. Ae the sweatin? Is thei ace shed o v

These thins can tell s a lot abot a pesons emotional st ate.Ate we conside these thins, we mst then conside how peop

atel alte thei skins appeaance to chane the nate o the commwe send. Does the peson se cosmetics to alte thei appeaance, o inmake thei ees appea lae o thei skin moe lstos? Does the p ean tattoos o othe oms o pemanent sel-decoation? Cosmetics anent skin decoations like tattoos ae dieent expessions o pesona

in that tell s impotant thins abot o aspiations and identit.

o most o hman histo, snliht has been consideed a mostl pence on hmans becase snliht boht wamth and beca se s

o the ea wee times when cops oished and people wee wecase snliht bins abot the pod ction o vitamin D in the skin, ito its positive eects on hman mood.

Ambiit abot the ole o snliht and hman skin is a elativephenomenon that has appeaed onl in cetain aicltal societithe last 5,000 o so eas. This ambiit has been most pononced

that have well dened seasons, with damaticall hihe levels o sthe smme owin season ve ss consideabl lowe levels in the these places, snliht was associated with otdoo wok and phsicso a lie awa om the sn was consideed bette, speio, and mleed. This is wh lihte-skinned people in these aiclt al societmost alwas consideed moe desiable within thei own clte the did not have to wok had in the sn to make a livin. The pesesence o a tan was an easil visible label o ones class.

The eel ood eects o snliht ae based in pat on the phsioloico snliht on the skin. The uVr in ston snliht bins abot the

o vitamin D in the skin, and this impats a tansient sense o elaxawell-bein. Sn expose can also lead to a tan on the skin that mannd attactive in themselves and othes. The connections betweenand enhanced eelins o well-bein and heihtened sel-imae aeo the easons wh man people take winte holidas in topical plainside a bildin, howeve, whee lass oten blocks most uV r, snliin thoh windows impats phsical wamth and b ihtness that ple nd plitin. It is citical to emem be in this connection that thlineae has spent most o its six million eas o exis tence in the topan evoltiona pespective, we ae ceates o the sn.

na Jalk is an anthopoloistwho is inteested in seveal aspectso hman evoltion. Tained as a com-paative anatomist and palaeontolo-ist, Jablonski has stdied poblemso the pimate and hman ossilecod o 30 eas. In the last 5eas, he inteests have tned to lin-ein poblems o hman evoltion

that ae not eadil answeed b os-sil ecod. These inclde the evoltion

o hman skin and skin colo. Jablon-

ski centl lives and woks in cen-tal Pennslvania in easten uSA, bt

has lived and condcted eld wok in

China, Kena, Nepal and othe con-ties. www.antho.ps.ed/aclt_sta/jablonski.shtml

To what extent does hman skin, as the saceand bonda o the hman bod, pla a ole ocommnication inteace othe than thoh thesense o toch?

In the atemath o the discove o the ozone hole,the sn and its liht pla an ambios ole in ela-tion to hman skin: the ae, in a wa, both iendand enem. In how a can this am biit be taced

back in hman histo, and how dependent is it oneoaphic and cltal backonds?

When liht toches the hman skin, at st lanceit podces an intense bt special aesthetic e-

ect. yet the eects o this toch o well beondthe sace. And it is pecisel this non-spe-cial eect o liht that is essential. To what extentdo o nd this analo elevant to o own e-seach on skin?

Aual aveae UV aa(UVr) level a e ea u-ae (a eaue e nAsAtoms-7 aelle). b pka lue lu ae UVr level, ae -eae ea e equa aell a e al-ue eve.

najak


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M. Schneide, what did the clte that o haveown p in, as well as o edcation, teach oabot skin?

Did this concept o skin chane in the cose o o

caee? What popeties o skin have o discov-eed osel that o conside impotant?

In most o o potaits, o eithe et ve closeto a pesons skin o liteall look beneath it aso did in o genetic Sel-Potait seies. Doo eel that o et to know a peson o o-sel bette b doin so?

yo Geetc Portrats and nudes seies do notshow an o the concepts sall associated withpotaits, sch as beat o expession o chaac-te. The ae athe moe o a scientic, methodi-cal sctin o the hman bod. Do the epesentthe imae that we will have o oselves in the -te, ol

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