Live with abundant lights

Yuichiro Noguchi
Aug 25
3 min read

Updated: Aug 26

Speaking of lighting, I think most people take it for granted to illuminate the space brightly.

When it comes to mainstream lighting in Japanese houses, it is a downlight-centered lighting plan, and if it is a slightly fashionable house, pendant lights will be used on the dining table or kitchen counter.

Many housing designers add lighting plans to detailed flat drawings, or lighting manufacturers plan them, but lighting is rarely drawn on the development diagram.

The fact that there are countless downlights on the ceiling is actually unique to Japanese houses.

In Western houses, it is not common to light up the entire room with only ceiling lighting. From the beginning of construction, it is not uncommon for only bracket lights to be attached to the building, and it is more common to place multiple lighting such as floor lamps, table lamps, and pendant lamps.

Even in Japan, there should be many luxury hotel lighting like that, including foreign hotels. Rather than the fact that the entire room is bright, the necessary lights are placed in the necessary places, so to speak, it is a lighting plan that is "suitable for the right place".

Even in Japan, you can see it in house manufacturers and design offices that deal with so-called luxury houses, but it is normal that ordinary houses do not even make proposals, so it may be inevitable that there are many people who do not know.

In recent years, you can experience such lighting at Starbucks coffee stores, but there are many people who don't care about it unexpectedly, and most of the people think that the lighting at home is "the brighter the better" in the first place. It may be natural for the proposer to take second steps.

For a long time in Japan, it was considered good to have as little lighting as possible (= low cost) and as bright as possible (= high efficiency), and fluorescent lights have been used in homes just like offices and factories.

It may be safe to say that "lighting" and "Japanese lighting culture" are the most affected by low-cost and efficiency-oriented Japanese house construction for European and American homes such as valuing the rich lighting culture.

As long as the lighting is bright, there is no particular complaint.

Rather than taking care of the atmosphere in your home, there are overwhelmingly many people who think that it is better to be bright for the time being, but to illuminate with lighting placed on the ceiling farthest from your hand, you need to choose a fairly bright lighting fixture. Then, brighter lighting than necessary will be placed on the ceiling, so as a result, light will shine on places that are not necessary. Wouldn't the room where the light reflected on the pure white walls and ceilings feel brighter than necessary from overseas people?

Imagine, what if the aforementioned Starbucks Coffee store had white walls and countless downlights? Just as there is a saying in the lighting of the house, a house with a variety of lights enriches your life. Such a space with rich lights cannot be achieved only by the light from the ceiling.

The lights of the "suitable light in the right place" placed in places of different heights, such as on the dining tables, next to the sofa, cabinets and shelves, and disappear into the darkness where the light does not need to hit the things you want to see or the place. Such a "life that enjoys the light and dark only at night" It is such a diverse space that stimulates people's sensibility and allows them to enjoy true richness.

Junichiro Tanizaki's "Yinko Reisan", which was serialized in the magazine "Economic Travel" in Showa 8, was worried that Japan's ancient culture would be lost as light bulbs invented in Europe and the United States spread in Japan, but nearly 100 years later It has passed, and now I feel that overseas countries, including the Nordic countries, are inheriting a much richer culture of lights.

Now, the material richness has been fulfilled to the extent that it cannot be compared to that time, but I think that the richness of the heart that Mr. Tanizaki feared in "Yinko Rezan" has been lost.

Rich lights are not from special places on special occasions, but are necessary and culturally valuable in everyday life. In turn, it will change the quality of life and life itself into something truly rich.