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Legitimacy & Lighting Design

To say that the field of architectural lighting design is under-served as an intellectual discipline compared to it's fellows is something of an understatement. I've been thinking about this issue as I work towards my degree here at Parsons, and I'm realizing more and more how we as designers need to demand more respect. That's not to say architects and others don't value our input, but that we've been neglected and allowed ourselves not to be originators of thought. I've started some writing in an attempt to create some sort of intellectual framework for architectural lighting and place that framework within historical context. It's a mighty bitch of a job, though, because there's such an indexing problem in every library and catalog. In doing research, I've basically had to hunt and peck, hoping that I'd blindly stumble over something that's worth reading. It's absolutely absurd. I think that this needs addressing, but it means that architectural lighting needs more academicians pushing for a change in the indexing system. Sigh. We need architectural lighting historians. Any volunteers?

As I do start this work, I'm hoping that it will eventually correlate to the academic work I've done in theatrical lighting (my undergrad thesis contains my initial thoughts in this realm), creating some kind of general theory of lighting design. I know it sounds a bit crazy and ambitious, but I think that lighting needs someone to lay down the basic language in a manner that is grounded in the existing history/theory and that we need to establish some sort of canon. If we can do that, maybe the field can get on the same page and actually go somewhere.