Lux Nova – The New Light

Recently I had the first opportunity to visit our finished Biosciences Centre (Thomas Building) extension at night – a wondrous experience. Entering the atrium via one of the bridges, I was struck by the colourful light radiating from the LED stripes alongside the old façade. However, from that side, I couldn’t even see the actual light source. Walking between the glass balustrades there were ricocheting layers of red, yellow, blue and green lights. The angled glass louvers made the colour rays shooting up into the night sky as the boundaries of the atrium became blurred. I experienced a limitless continuum stretching from the park to the street right into the sky with all directions linked by the ephemerally reflected light beams.

I immediately was reminded of my first visit to the cathedral of Chartres decades ago. The dark blue shimmering envelope surrounded me and at times I stood in a rainbow of colours that emerged when sunrays penetrated parts of the stained glass. Floor, pillars and arches were covered with blurred patches of chromatic light. The stone of the cathedral became transmuted into light alike the fenestrated walls – a vibrating vortex of colours.

The concept of coloured light as bearer of a metaphysical message was the idea of Abbot Suger of Saint Denis. Inscriptions from 1144 over the portal of his then new choir of the abbey explain his light mysticism:

"Clarit enim claris quae clare concopulatur.

Et quod perfundit lux nova, claret opus nobile."

"For bright is that which is brightly coupled with the bright.

And bright is the noble edifice that is pervaded by the new light."

We should note the double meaning of the Latin term “claritas” being translated as “brightness”. A bright mind handles a lot of knowledge and is also aware of the limits of human efforts. The LED lighting stripes depict an amazing accomplishment of research, the mapping of the DNA. Scientific research now faces the responsibility to utilise its knowledge wisely according to the standards of human moral. Diving daily through the mystical light right at the doorstep of the new Bioscience Centre may remind the scientists of “claritas,” the aim for inspired brighness: lux nova.

This is what struck me when entering the atrium of the Thomas Building extension.

Click here for more information on Abbot Suger.

- Posted Aug. 9, 2011