Light and dark: blog presentation

Yin and yang are complementary opposites that interact

within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system

‘Light and Dark’ is an eternal theme. It includes the concept of good and bad, bright and shade, shallow and deep. 
Light gives human beings the hope and Dark makes people despair. 
However without Dark, people can’t see the Light: they are like the Yin and Yang, restricting each other but can’t living alone.

“光和暗”是永恒的主题；其中包含了好、坏；明、暗；浅、深的含义。光明给人们带来希望；黑暗让人绝望。但没有黑暗则无法展现光明，二者如同阴阳两极，相互制约，缺一不可。

‘Guāng hé àn’ shi yǒng héng de zhǔ tí; Qí zhōng bāo hán lé hǎo huaì, míing àn, qǐan shēn de hán yìi.
Guāng míng gěi rén men daì laí xī wàng; Heī àn ràng rén jué wàng.
Dàn meí yǒu heī àn zé wú fǎ zhān xiàn guāng míng, er zhě rú tóng yīn yáng liǎng jí, xiāng hù zhì yuē, quē yī bù kě.

Light and dark: conceptual map

A lamp that mimics the moon

The 'Eclipse lamp' by Vico Magistretti for Artemide (Milano), 1967

Two years before man's first landing on the moon, Vico Magistretti designs for Artemide the 'Eclipse lamp', an icon of Sixties Design and the Space Age.

The lamp has two sphere shades, the inner one rotable, so one can have different lights like the changing ones from the moon.

Translucent wood

This material looks like any other piece of wood until you shine light through it, at which point you discover that, unlike any other wood product, it is translucent.

Modern innovative materials usually give to a traditional material (such as wood or concrete) some unespected features (brightness, lightness) that traditionally belong to another one.

Clic here to see the patent.

Measuring time by the Sun

For thousands of years, people used sundials to tell the time. The first sundials were used more than 3,500 years ago in Egypt.
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun.
In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from a thin rod or a sharp, straight edge, onto a flat surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day.
As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow-edge progressively aligns with different hour-lines on the plate.

Clic here to see a patent of a modern adjustable sundial.



How to make a sundial on your own

Light breaks the darkness

Tadao Ando: Church of the Light

Church of the light (sometimes called "Church with Light") is the Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church's main chapel. It was built in 1989, in the city of Ibaraki, Osaka, and it is one of the most famous design of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

The Church of the Light consists of three 5.9m concrete cubes (5.9m wide x 17.7m long x 5.9m high) penetrated by a wall angled at 15°, dividing the cube into the chapel and the entrance area. One indirectly enters the church by slipping between the two volumes, one that contains the Sunday school and the other that contains the worship hall. The benches, along with the floor boards, are made of re-purposed scaffolding used in the construction. A cruciform is cut into the concrete behind the altar, and lit during the morning (as it is facing east).

The origin of light in Inuit mythology

Tulugaak from an illustration by Agnes Nanogak, Holman island, 1983

In Inuit mythology, Tulugaak was the creator of light. The Inuit are very tied to the past, trying to explain to some extent the existence of some creatures, such as the onset of light.

In the early times, there was only darkness; there was no light at all. At the edge of the sea a woman lived with her father. One time she went out to get some water. As she was scraping the snow, she saw a feather floating toward her. She opened her mouth and the feather floated in and she swallowed it. From that time she was pregnant.
Then she had a baby. It's mouth was a raven's bill. The woman tried hard to find toys for her child. In her father's house was hanging a bladder that was blown up. Now the baby, whose name was tulugaak (Raven), pointed at it and cried for it. The woman took the bladder down from the wall and let the baby play with it. But in playing with it, he broke it. Immediately, it began to get light. Now there was light in the world, and darkness, too.