Light can create inspiring moments and spaces—sometimes spectacular, other times intimate—as one approaches and moves through a building. These moments are like snapshots in the mind, memories that evoke emotion.
A single light invokes an image of Solitude: The lighted casement of a distant hut, the hut that stands quite alone on the horizon before one comes to fields and marshlands.
–Rilke
A special light which falls and grazes can create a spiritual experience: The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.
–Louis Kahn
Dramatic shafts of sunlight penetrate still geometric constructions, creating a confrontation between man and nature: In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, Where no one can see you, But sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
-Rumi
Light and shade play a critical role in the way we experience architecture. Working with sensitivity to four-dimensional space, architects must understand the way the light will dance across and into buildings. In this way, a building can transcend its physical characteristics and create unique and memorable moments.
