Manuel Bouzas and Santiago del Águila, the authors of La catenaria y el arco in the courtyard of Can Balaguer (by architects Flores & Prats) in Palma de Mallorca, present their urban installation ‘Lucerna,’ created for the A Cel Obert ephemeral architecture festival in Tortosa in October 2021.
This monumental lamp, standing over 6 meters tall and covering an area of 55 square meters, hangs from the main courtyard of the Purissima Concepció monastery, radically transforming this 17th-century building through light and color.
Text description provided by the authors. The conceptual origin of the project stems from the dual meaning of the word ‘Lucerna.’ This term is used to designate the skylights that naturally illuminate a space. However, it was also used by the Romans to refer to the ancient oil lamps that produced light in the dark—in other words, the first lamps in history.
The proposal explores the intersection between these two notions, offering a contemporary reinterpretation of the classic hanging lamps that have crowned religious spaces throughout history, from Reims Cathedral to the Hagia Sophia.
In collaboration with lighting designer Ana Barbier, the authors built the project using six wooden rings with LED strips installed along their inner edges. Suspended from the courtyard's cornice by a lightweight structure of cables and tensioners, the piece hangs in the space. A wavy, translucent polyester resin skin wraps around the rings to diffuse and direct the light to the ground. Here, a small staircase elevates visitors into the interior, where they discover the Cel Obert (open sky) framed by the organic geometry of the piece.
At nightfall, the lamp becomes a vibrant vessel of light, transforming the courtyard through glow and color—a color that spills over the boundaries of the monastery and reaches the street, where the residents of Tortosa are invited to discover and reactivate the city's forgotten and hidden spaces.
Credits
Authors: Manuel Bouzas, Santiago del Aguila
Lighting Design: Ana Barbier
Client: A Cel Obert, Xarxa Transversal
Collaborators: Difusiona, Casambi
Photography: Antonio Bouzas
This article was written by Fabian Dejtiar. The translation is powered by AI.
