Filippo Cannata recently took part in the Round Table "The Light and the Architect" made in Milan with the coordination of the editorial office of the magazine Luce e Design published by Tecniche Nuove Publishing House. At the table of comparison seated leading architects and interior designers as well as entrepreneurs representing the business world.
The occasion is very important because this initiative has sought to take stock of the relationship, within the lighting industry, between the figure of the lighting designer and other actors such as the architect, the electric engineer, the installer or the manufacturing company.
A view shared among the guests is, of course, the increased awareness about the value of light within the architectural project, its function as a "tool that can enhance the pace of architecture", though too often economic constraints or issues of ambiguity between technical value and artistic value of the light lead to neglect or give up what is called the '"excellence of lighting".
The basis of a significant turnaround are identified in a greater commitment of the architect in making sure that light enters the project as a decisive element, with a take-over activity that goes beyond the study and extends to the presence in yard through actions as raising manufacturer’s awareness and accountability of the whole chain.
"The architecture – somebody stresses – through a frantic search of authorship rather than service to the client, has lost its function as moral and ethical service." The philosophy of "man in the middle of the project" and the principle of "cultural and professional contamination", according to Filippo Cannata, are the levers of an operating system that could allow the meeting and the agreement of all the actors involved in this field: the axis moves to a different sensibility that pushes everyone to make use of the surplus value that the other professional can give to get a better or excellent final result. "It takes a very close collaboration, synergy and especially complicity". This is a collaboration/comparison containing within it the seeds of a conflict that can be turned to the benefit of the overall project, particularly for the benefit of the client's welfare which is the common ultimate goal.
The proposed new operational scenarios include, in conclusion, a system of alliances based on clarity, transparency and professionalism, a system in which the architect plays a coordinating role, with the duty to make understand how in the project the light, with its emotional values, is able to give to architecture a deeper and more impressive meaning.