Light

Rules that use the word

Along the axis: floors rise, roofs fall, light fades. Arrange the temple on a single axis (pylon, open court, hypostyle hall, sanctuary) so that at each threshold the floor rises, the roof descends and the light diminishes, until the god’s shrine is reached in darkness.

Raise the central aisle and light it from above. In a great columned hall make the columns of the central aisle taller than the rest, and fill the difference in height with stone grilles, so that light enters high up over the side aisles.

Open flowers in the light, buds in the shade. Give the columns of the tall, clerestory-lit central aisle open papyrus capitals and those of the lower aisles closed buds.

Articulate brick walls with buttresses and recesses. Break the long faces of brick walls with regularly spaced shallow buttresses (or recesses), so that light and shadow give scale and rhythm to a material without mouldings.

Coffers that diminish towards the lantern. Divide the inside of a dome into coffers that shrink in step with the meridians as they rise, so that their perspective deepens the dome and draws the eye to the light of the lantern.

The undulating front. Let the wall of a façade curve in plan (concave, convex, concave) so that the front answers the street, the light and the space within, and the order bends with it.

Where it appears in the book

In the chapters What Is Architecture?, Walls and Openings, Vaults, Domes, Frame and Skin, The Anatomy of an Order, The Ancient World, The Classical World.

A feature of Aegean Bronze Age, Gothic, Ottoman, Baroque, Rococo, The Picturesque architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Leaded light · Leak window · Lesene · Lierne · Lintel · Living hall · Loggia · Lombard band