A century without the Sun

 

RJUKAN, NORWAY. They have been dreaming of the Sun since 1913. A small town surrounded by mountains has finally got its portion of direct Sun. Some 400 meters above the town, a smart mirror system was installed this Autumn to cast a ray of natural light over to a town square.

 

Martin Andersen a local resident-artist has realized the Sun completely disappears from the town square by the end of September and never sheds light till the mid March. 12 years after his observation he got a German supplier of concentrated solar power to helicopter three 17-square meter mirrors on the sloop of Gaustatoppen. solar-powered computer controlled system follows the movement of the Sun and projects a fair portion of it onto Rjukan's market square.

 

A piece of art or an actual source of light? Does it matter if it makes you feel shiny?

 

P.S. we have used an instagram photo (found simply searching by the hashtag) of which we believed served best to show the reaction of  dwellers of Rjukan to the project.

The best is the enemy of good

ARCHMOSCOW, Moscow, Russia. LEDs provide a user with uncountable opportunities. Why use them all at a time?

OPERA HOUSE, Yekaterinburg, Russia. I wonder if a person making this 'lighting design' ever been to the Opera?

Made to last forever...

A HOUSING, Chelyabinsk, Russia. This ... lighting fixture was shot in a housing of a so called Khruschev series. Back in sixties Nikita Khruschev had introduced small appartment housings to solve the accomodation shortage. They say he had borrowed the idea from Finland but taken saunas away. Actually, there were showers in kitchens in some of the housings like that.

I was caught shooting by a dweller. When he got to know what I had been doing, he had commented that this... chandelier would last forever though it might look queer.

High ceilings? No worries!

PULSEN CONFERENCE CENTER, Borås, Sweden. I often hear a question from cutomers that are about to deal with maintenance of fittings placed high above the floor level. Look here guys! This trolley stood between a restaurant and conference hall, occupied minimum space, neat and tide.

Btw, the Pulsen conference center is something to see in Borås: former textile factory, skillfully turned into modern loft. And a nice restaurant too.

Drill the heat out of Diablo!

USPENSKY SHOPPING CENTER, Yekaterinburg, Russia. There's a number of fixtures of the kind, all drilled like this. From the out of record talk with a Center's representative, I have found out that they had been made on purpose to take out the heat. Otherwise, ballasts of these 10 times xx W would shut down.

The fixture is Modular Diablo.