Page 192 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

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The natural lighting of rooms is another favourite topic. The architect
contested natural light impoverishment inside buildings. He advocated
perfect glass transparency and using additive-free and colour-free extra
clear crystalline glass. But filtering light is increasingly required to avoid
glaring. The race for energy performance generated obsessions: using
artificial light should be limited but infrared rays should be filtered from solar
light. Philippe Samyn achieved perfect transparency for the atrium windows
but had to agree to a slight filtering (metallic oxides incorporated to glass)
for office windows and for the lantern striped-skin panels. This issue derives
from the same tendency to look for essential continuity of architecture: the
architect reckons that the building material is destined to channel light. But
light is either gaseous or liquid. Gaseous in mist and liquid when it bounces
like a brook. Architecture must vibrate with light according to its three states
or rhythms. Gaseous, liquid and radiating, light shines!