Ettore Sottsass about the use of light
Over a few long afternoons in front of the Mediterranean, the elegance and the humanity of Ettore Sottsass’s mind captured us. We collected and translated some of his words for you, from his essay The use of light, in Codignola Matteo (a cura di), Molto difficile da dire, Adelphi Edizioni, Milano 2019.
Ettore Sottsass, portrait
When in 1969 Sottsass was invited to be part of jury for the International Lamp Design Competition by the Yamagiwa Society in Tokyo, he jokingly confessed to not be competent on the subject of lamps. Lamp design required him so many attempts and experiments, so many questions, he believed he had perhaps designed only one decent lamp the year before. There were specialists of lamps and light in every sector, especially from North America, but he was not one of them and probably the topic was still quite vague in general:
It seems to me that people don't know very well how the streets should be lit, no one knows very well how cities should be lit (like the suburbs and the central districts?), people don't know very well. how schools or factories or asylum lots or prison cells should be lit. Do people know?
It seems to me that people don't know if thousands of employees that I saw with my own eyes accepted without uttering a word of complaint to work all day, consuming a large part of their miserable lives in the offices of a large industry. American plants planted in the Arizona desert, offices that were separated like frozen submarine cells from the happy rock-scented desert air and were lit by ceiling carpets of thousands of fluorescent tubes from which dripped an unreal trembling light, a sort of yellowish light of death. When I went out at sunset, after endless underground hours, into the true light of the perfect sky, it was like passing miraculous water over my sore eyes, that water that mothers once carried in silence in the bowls, or the monks of distant convents who have disappeared. It was like this. (…)
To tell the truth, none of us are able to say whether the light bulbs that are in the catalogs are the best light bulbs there could be or not and whether they have the best shapes and these things. I mean that if light bulbs are instruments made to deliver to us a raw material such as light, they are already very complicated instruments, because by giving us the raw material which is light they also give us a large number of limits not only on the quality of light but also on the way and possibilities of using it. (…)
Talking about light specialists means, wherever you go, referring to the human body, its care, its defense: talking about light as a raw material means talking about a raw material for the construction of the environment in which man lives, and one cannot imagine other real references than those of the defense and care of the fragile human body: a biological body reconquered to its most ancient reality which is that of hosting the first and final origin of the human adventure. Other references that someone could go looking for, the monetary references, the productive ones, even the technical or scientific ones, not to mention the moral ones or whatever, have no character of reality if they are not consumed immediately and without leaving a trace of ash in the only theme that concerns us all: that of pity for the human condition. At this point perhaps I too have something to say (also about light). Perhaps the specialty I know or at least the one I would like to know is the specialty that concerns the structure or possession of piety. It’s been years, years, many years that we go around with Nanda looking for words, images, memories that leave on our hands the traces of pity, the traces of love, of respect, of care, of the defense of the person: defense from loneliness, from fear, from defeat, from decay, defense. knows from empty spaces and defense from narrow corridors, defense from multiplication and defense from monotony, defense from silences or defense from screams; and pity for oblivion, pity for memories, pity for those who sweat and pity for those who freeze, pity if there is too much darkness, and pity if there is too much light, pity for the lost concentration and pity for fixation. Pity for life.
And here perhaps I would also have something to tell about light, ancient stories, endless stories about light, ancient stories, endless stories about the use of light as matter that takes the form of piety, matter that it can be led to become a sign of piety. (…)
At this point I could talk at length about certain architectures that are solid shells built around light diagrams instead of the opposite. I mean that in books on the history of architecture or even almost always in photographs and drawings of architecture, the emphasis is above all on the solid diagram which is considered the support of the light. (…) when we talk of architecture we willingly talk about stones, cement, walls, pillars and beams, vaults, friezes and these things, we talk about gems, diamonds, years of work, quantity of workers , of fires, of destruction and these things and little is said about light, which instead is often the only and true three-dimensional diagram, to which the solid casing does nothing other than give the support, the limit and if you want the house. The Mediterranean is full of architectures built around a diagram of light: architectures in which the definition of the environment is delivered to the light, architectures that have been imagined and built only to guide or maintain through the foreseen manipulation of the - the light in a state of clarity, concentration and permanent consciousness, the daily history of the inhabitants.
I am here to tell stories of light so that we get used to or perhaps get used again to the idea that light is a matter of language and it is neither a cosmic vibration nor just a matter to be consumed.
Ettore Sottsass then refers to his Japanese audience and talks about the their perfect knowledge of light. There is an intimate relationship between light and Japanese architecture: every layer of light seems to have an intrinsic weight, a specific direction. The Japanese house, from the Imperial Villa to the farmer’s humble house, is in itself a construction of light plans, rather than an assembly of floors, partitions and ceilings. It is a microcosm regulated and defined by light. Sottsass argues that a Japanese culture that is detached from the knowledge and the fantastic and loving use of light does not exist. Other cultures could exist, but not the sophisticated Japanese one - which, he claims, gives us a vast body of references to study and learn how to design spaces around light: Maybe it's that I'm not what they call a modern man, or maybe I'm a specialist in things that aren't useful, or maybe I enjoy thinking about things that concern a society of aware people rather than a society of alienated people, I enjoy trying to draw things that promote awareness rather than drawing things irremediably directed towards alienation. It must be like this and therefore I spoke of a light and lamps that are not limited to illuminating more or less, but are valid as diagram signs for a complete definition of space.
Using light means using all the space at our disposal, it means using all the landscape within which the audience, a tourist, a man moves and lives (…) because light penetrates with its design reaching the most secret inner places of those who inhabit it; because light is not an object we can touch and that stays outside of us, but it invades all its space and its negative space, shadow, which is itself light. We are always completely inside light, and inside the deformations or evolutions that we impress in the world where we live, inside the support of our psychic and intellectual history, inside the support of our awareness (…) I just wanted to say that designing a lamp means designing light and I wanted to say that designing light means designing the environment and I wanted to say that designing the environment means favoring awareness.
Viabizzuno’s approach towards the design of light is in our opinion one of the most interesting examples of commitment towards awareness. We will post more insight about light and ____ (design/architecture/landscape/art).
Below is a gallery of how light has played a crucial role in all our projects so far - we hope you will enjoy it!
And to close with something we’ve had on the table for a while, here is one of our projects after the demolition of the interiors. It is not the largest project, nor the most important, but it is our favorite just because of how natural light touches it.
