Light
Making Form & Order

Lighting & the Hagia Sophia

•The church was burned and desiccated many times throughout its history, but in the case of the Nika insurrection of January 532AD, a circumstance that gave Justinian I the Great an opportunity to envision a replacement that would survive for more than a millennia and would still be the main attraction of tourists visiting modern Istanbul.

•Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus were architects, mathematicians & students of burning mirrors by Diocles, who proved that the surface that reflects the rays from the sun to a single point is a paraboloid of revolution. In a way proving that light could be manipulated by different surfaces. Both men included the manipulation of light in the grand structure of the Hagia Sophia, and the largest church in the entire world at the time was only built in 6 years.

•The impressive size, the way light was reflected and manipulated towards the ceiling of the structure & the speed in which this impressive structure was built would be impressive for a modern building, let alone one that was made when the Western Roman Empire was within living memory.

Within this Project, I will be using the Hagia Sophia as an inspiration to make the Main Chapel. The chandeliers of the Hagia Sophia would be used within both the Meditation and the Memorial Chapels.

Kimbell Art Museum Lighting

Louis Khan also manipulated lighting within the Kimbell Art Museum. Unlike Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus who only had lighting in the form of candles, Khan used artificial lighting, powered by electricity and reflected using mirrors. Within this Project, I would take inspiration from Khan by manipulating light from the ceiling.

Notre-Dame Du Haut

Le Corbusier's design for Notre-Dame Du Haut was also a great example of manipulating natural lighting within buildings. His usage of light cannons is what inspired me to reflect the lighting from the ceiling of all my Chapels as well as each window.

Steven Holl's Chapel of Saint Ignatius is going to inspire me to manipulate light upwards towards the ceiling. This would be a great inspiration for the Memorial Chapel since it is as though the spirits of the dead are rising upwards towards the heavens. It would also shift the lighting away from people who do not want too much lighting so they could Meditate. The main Chapel would also have this feature.