Page 7 - Between light and shade

Introduction

The cover image 1 shows a section of a glass sculp-
ture, which needs to be visualised in the empty
space around it 2.

It encapsulates the subject of this small work.
Complex transparencies, shade and reflec-
tions originate from a form that is actually very
simple in terms of its geometry, but this ephe-
meral sculpture only becomes real thanks to the

1 Photographs and photographed models are themselves either
reflections of a proven or anticipated reality, or shadows of the
memory of their failure to materialise, as is the case for the
projects that illustrate this subject.
2 The white glass parallelepiped (with its transparency, shade and

reflections) on a square base measuring 62 × 1.35 m = 83.7 m
on each side and 4 × 1.8 m = 7.2 m in height (4 × 1.35 × 4/3), the
head office of AGC Europe in Louvain-la-Neuve acquires its
lightness, along with that of its bell tower: the ancillary paral-
lelepiped to the extra-clear glass sculpture (with transparency,
shade and reflections of another kind) of 10 × 1.35 m = 13.5 m
long, 1.35 m deep and 10 × 1.8 m = 18 m (10 × 1.35 × 4/3) high. Its
foundations are ready and awaiting its construction, which I
hope will proceed in 2017 (01/577 — Fig. 1).
The 4/3 ratio (and the 1.35 m dimension) presages Pythagoras’
theorem on triangles (and the human scale).

7