Architecture / Industry | Nominee

Christof Pluemacher

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Urban Darkness

Concept

In the past, our views of the city at night were characterised by light – be it neon signs or the brightly-lit facades of office towers. The predominant lack of this sumptuous, artificial illumination was something I felt belonged only in the former communist states before the immense upheavals in the latter part of the twentieth century.

It was therefore all the more exciting to observe that the nightly illumination of the greater part of German high-rise architecture is currently in a state of change. The dazzling profusion light has moved aside to be replaced by discreet darkness. My observations of this darkened architecture relate less to the technical aspects of this change than to an emotional component of the architecture in itself.