Ponte di Rialto

In front of the main gate to Senso-ji Shrine lies the neighborhood of Asakusa. One of Tokyo’s most popular entertainment districts, Asakusa flourished with kabuki, opera, and comic storytelling from the Meiji Era to the end of WWII. The Lighting Detectives discovered a variety of decorative streetlights and a lighting atmosphere fitting for this lively cultural destination. Upon entering the famous Kaminarimon, the Nakamise approach proceeds towards the shrine with bright-white, fluorescent-tube illuminated signage lining both sides. After navigating this corridor, walls of softly glowing lanterns come into view. The lanterns once lit with fire were replaced with incandescent bulbs and now fluorescent lamps. In popular neighborhoods like Shibuya or Roppongi, architectural facade lighting or neon signage fills the vertical space and “street lighting” is virtually non-existent. However, a variety of decorative streetlights festively illuminate the streets of Asakusa for a very fitting lighting environment. Pub signage and lanterns dispersed along the dark streets of Asakusa create an uncanny charm in this neighborhood. Roadway lux levels are a fairly dim 10-16 lx, but the red lanterns hanging from the eaves of establishments dig up affection for this old town.

2023.01.18-01.20　　Yumi Honda ＋ Misuzu Nakamura　 Kobe is famous for the night view from Mt. Rokko as the “10 Million Dollar Nightscape” and for its waterside nightscape as a port city. Nightscape guidelines have been established in 2012, and efforts are being actively made to improve the lighting in the city. We walked around the city, which continues to be updated, and explored the components of a nightscape that is uniquely Kobe. ■“Instagrammable” NightscapePort Tower, Maritime Museum, Oriental Hotel, Hotel Okura, Ferris wheel, sightseeing boats, and the “BE KOBE” monument…. When people think of the city of Kobe, they probably think of Meriken Park. Meriken Park is the face of Kobe, and even at night many people were visiting the park to take commemorative photos. Many of the park’s symbolic monuments were lit up and color lighting was used extensively, but the colors and color schemes were mainly neutral, not primary colors, so it was nice to enjoy the colorful light without getting an overpowering impression. To complement the color lighting, the ground lights of the pole lights, handrail lights, and bollard lights were uniformly lit with light bulbs, creating a subdued brightness. Both decorative lighting and functional lighting emitted little excessive glare, allowing us to concentrate on the illuminated objects. It seemed like seeing the nightscape and taking pictures of it could be the purpose of a visit to this place. In this age of breathlessly uploaded photos and videos…

2018/07/21-07/22 Yumi Honda + Simeng Huang + Noriko Higashi This tour was planned to make up for last year’s U-turn over Hachijo-jima. We took a chartered bus from Tokyo to Achi Village in Nagano Prefecture, which has been selected as the village with the most beautiful starry skies in Japan. A total of 15 participants enjoyed the summer stars and sun. Waiting to see the stars at Heaven’s Sonohara ■The Starry Sky as a Tourist Resource Even on a bright night with strong moonlight, the number of stars was completely different from what you would see in a city People lying down on the mountaintop, waiting A guided commentary on the stars using a laser pointer Tsumago-juku, the 42nd post town on the Nakasendo trail. A sight unique to the mountains: a roof thatched with wood and held down with stones The waki-honjin’s irori-bata and high windows. The seat for the head of the household is in the foreground A nostalgic streetscape This “Achi Village Starry Sky Tour” was devised as a way to attract tourists back to Hirugami Onsen—which had been popular until the time of the Aichi Expo—by using the ski resort during the summer. While reading an interesting article on the bus, we, the Lighting Detectives members, learned that the event, which was started by villagers about five years ago, has now become a year-round attraction. With that in mind, we headed from Tokyo to the western…

Theme:　Light art and Lighting design Interviewer:　Blanche Lam Blanche：LPA is a lighting design firm. The works mainly focuses on design rather than art. What do you think about design and art? Mende： Good question! But I’d like to ask you before my correct answer, Blanche. Blanche：I studied both art and design before. Art could be explained through personal emotion or convey the message to visitor/ audience. Each artwork has its own story. For design, depends on user or purpose or different situation to improve and change. How about you, what do you think about art or artist? Mende： Artist is a great career. I like art but I decided not to be an artist. Artists are more isolated spiritually. Recently, there are many people saying that designers should be much closer to artist and artist might learn many things from designer. But I don’t think so. We should be inspired by each other. However, artist doesn’t need to think about the neighborhood or others happiness. Just express their feeling or passion. But the designer always think somebody else happiness. Blanche： How about “lighting art”? Mende：I’m not familiar with this word “lighting art”, usually I would say light art. I know James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson, great artist who manipulate light as material. You cannot forget those two artists. I respect their works very much. Olafur Eliasson had an exhibition in London that is huge artificial sunlight. They cannot be compared with…

2024.05.30 Noriko Higashi A review of the May 10 City Night Survey was held. 20 people gathered at LPA on Friday night to discuss the lighting in the newest spot, Azabudai Hills.We did the review of the May 10 Azabudai Hills & Toranomon Hills Station Tower City Night Survey. The leaders of the groups summarized their opinions and made presentations using photos of the heroes and villain of each group. The report from each group seemed to have more heroes than the past town walks.I would like to report some common points and notable contents from each group’s presentation ■Media ceiling behind the eaves of Toranomon Hills Station Tower　Most of the teams had never seen a media ceiling before and highly evaluated it as an interesting new landmark. Some commented that the ceiling’s moving projections led visitors’ viewpoints upward, making the space appear larger. The digital lighting is very symbolic and suitable for the entrance of a new city which makes it deserve to be a hero. ■Azabudai Hills Landscape LightingA slightly darker lighting scheme that makes people naturally want to visit the brightly lit storefronts in the back of the building. The approach to the commercial area is less bright, making the store facade more conspicuous. The uplighting of trees, which usually tends to be a villain, was also well-lit, although there were some too dazzling spots depending on the type of tree. Opinions about the lighting at the…