In December 1979 the Teatro Comunale in Florence commissioned Bruno Munari to design a light show for Scriabin‘s Prometeo concert, which was to be performed in the same theatre in March 1980. “Considering this request as a design project, Munari calls on Davide Mosconi, musician, and Piero Castiglioni, lighting designer expert, to participate in the design. The participation of experts is essential to the success of a project. In Scriabin’s intentions, sound and light should simultaneously provoke a “different attention” in the audience, as he notes. The violently yellow light of the sodium vapour lamp. The so-called black light, or Wood’s light, is actually a beautiful dark colour and makes the atmosphere like a purple fog. Strobe lamps like so many flashes of lightning all the time, electric arc welders and finally nikelchrome glow wires, first used by Livio Castiglioni in the high ceiling of the staircase at the Triennale in Milan. Each of the light sources was used for its own colour. The technology marked the time of the chromatic modification of the light’. From the book “Uno spettacolo di luce”, Piero Castiglioni, Davide Mosconi, Bruno Munari, quaderni di design, 1984, Zanichelli, Bologna. The architectural lighting works in the field of theatrical scenography underlines two interesting aspects: the first one, that the light in theatre belongs to an eminently technical dimension; the second one, that it belongs to an eminently visual dimension. Fundamental qualities of light from a theatrical point of view are its ability to build in a dramatic and poetic sense, to produce meaning, to create actions, emotions, reactions.
Collaborations:
Bruno Munari
Davide Mosconi
Photo Courtesy:
Piero Castiglioni
Year:
1980
Other Projects
Orsay Museum where architecture became a big lighting device, the reflections of light bulbs with walls and ceilings create a uniform light without shadows. Groups of projectors in Grassi Palace recall a small football field. Here was born a new type of lighting device. Reflector lamps and articulated support gives life at the "Cestello". Spasa na Krovi is a perfection of Mantova project. Light beams aggregation allow the device size reduction and the dispersion light control.
