A more natural light versus the synthetic one of LEDs: to date, technology has yet to fill the gap from this point of view. Giulio Cappellini and Lisa Marchesi talked about it.

Technology also in the field of light has made great strides in recent years, it is moving with great speed. What does a professional Lighting Designer think of the technological influence in her work?

In the new meeting of Icone Talks, Giulio Cappellini, architect, designer and art director of Icone, met “virtually” Lisa Marchesi, who has been designing and designing lighting for the most varied fields of application for more than twenty years, from homes to offices, from museum exhibitions to big brand stores.

Lisa Marchesi. There are pros and cons in using technology to illuminate.

I consider myself an old school Lighting Designer, if you ask me which light source I prefer, I still say the incandescent bulb, because the light of the incandescent lamp is perfect, it is warm and soft. A LED lamp still fails to give the same intensity as the tungsten filament.

But at the same time, I know that technology can help. I am of the idea that new technologies must be a tool and as a Lighting designer I must not be conditioned by them, but otherwise I must be able to carry out my project with the available technologies, so that they help me get the result I want.

At the moment there is a lot of development in technology, but it is a bit overused. Many times you find yourself in situations where, for example for plants, certain choices are imposed on you but without motivation. For light sources we are now in a moment in which the LED is now predominant, everywhere; it is also right because it has important advantages in terms of energy savings, because they last many years and consume less.

Despite the continuous improvements, to date, especially when dealing with works of art, LED lights are not able to correctly perceive the color, the materiality of an oil on canvas.

In my opinion, therefore, we are on the right track but we have not yet reached the capacity of a halogen bulb, for example like the one an Ar111 had a few years ago.

However, we are making a lot of progress in terms of technology in the field of systems, that is, plants. Today there are all these new technologies, such as Casambi and Bluetooth, which allow you to make a system much easier at the level of electrical cable connections.

So there is a double aspect that is helping us in my opinion. We are all somewhat oriented towards energy saving, even for all the various certifications (Leed, Well, etc.), which are very important in the lighting sector, but at the same time the search for light sources should be further improved. From my point of view, as LED sources we are still a little bit behind, they are not yet as efficient.

Giulio Cappellini. Also because perhaps the incandescence has a more natural effect; maybe the LED still has a little synthetic light, this is a bit of the perception I have..

Watch the entire episode of Icone Talks with Giulio Cappellini and Lisa Marchesi on the IGTV of the Instagram channel @icone.luce