(notes)
Artificial light sources extend working time and community space:
Extending working period
- Utilization of the night
- Increase production
- Factory hall lighting
- Centralized control of illumination (first with gas lamp)
- Fire-protection
Extension of light source and community space
- Supression of crime from night streets
- Night street is in the posession of the community
- New phenomena: nighttime color vision (arclight vs gas lamp)
- Illuminated shop windows/showcases
- Illuminated depatrtment stores and shopping streets
- Illuminated areas within the city vs. semi-dark sections (bright arclights in the center, dim and “gray” gas lamps at the peripheries)
- Artificial Sun – bright arclights from high above
- Illuminated stages in theatres
- Illuminated architecture
I. Disconnecting the light from the flame
For a long time, artificial light was bound only to burn different materials. In the campfire – which provided not only warmth and light, but also community experience to the people gathered around it – it is obvious that the disappearing (burnt) wood is transformed into heat and light.
There was an obvious direct connection between the physical consumption of the wood(fuel) and the produced heat and light.
The invention of the wick made this connection less obvious: the wick acts as the sole site of combustion, while it only “transmits” the fuel, which – in case of an oil lamp with a separated container for the fuel – remains hidden. Candles and oil lamps produce a flame burning around an almost imperceptible wick look very different from wildly flickering flames around a wooden log or torch. The log and torch are physically consumed by the process of burning, while the bright flame around a wick does not represent perceptually the elementary and destructive power of fire. The steadily and quietly burning candle- or oil-lamp flame regulated and pacified fire.
Artificial illumination is closely connected to holidays, to well-being and richness. Spectacular wasting represents richness: balls illuminated with many thousands of candles, fireworks and ceremonies were the privileges of the aristocracy.
Lavoisier describes the chemical nature of combustion in 1770; most importantly that combustion requires oxygen and coal and that combustion can be controlled by the amount of air. Controlling the flame and increasing brightness were the last steps in the modernization of the oil lamps.
The flat band wick invented in 1773 further domesticated burning in lamps: the bright surface of the wick became the source of light instead of the flame, resulting a more steady and peaceful illumination.
The literal blueprint of the modern light-sourcr is the Argand lamp invented in 1783. It is still an oil lamp (although later it was used with gas as well), but a local, personal illuminator.
- hollow wick
- glass chimney
- adjustable wick
- double air supply, higher brightness
- higher temperature, cooler light
- smokeless, odorless flame, immaterialized light
- calm flame, non-vibrating shadows
- adjustable brightness, interactive light source
With the conquest of the night, the day is prolonged, working hours became extended.
As long as you work alone or with only one or two people, candles and oil lamps are the perfect solutions to extend working hours. However, a new solution had to be found to illuminate the factory halls. When coke (practically distilled coal) is produced, the inflammable gas generated by the burning of coal has been known since the 17th century, but it was considered as a useless by-product of the distillation process. Gas lighting is based on exploiting a previously ignored waste-product, so the fuel itself was extremely cheap. William Murdoch started to deal with the use of gas in the 1790s, initially trying to transport it in leather tanks. The chemist William Henry describes the procedure of carrying them like laps or candles like: “Bags of leather, and of varnished silk, bladders, and vessels of tinned iron, were filled with gas, which was set fire to an carried about from room to room, with a viewnof ascertaining how far it could be made to answer the purposes of a moveable or transfereable light.”(Peckston, T. S.: The Theory and Practice of Gas-Lighting, London, 1819, p. 95)
Realizing the inefficiency of the procedure, Murdoch develops a centralized pipe-network which connected the site of production to the consumer side. His pipes took the gas to a gasometer where it was stored. From the gasometer several pipes delivered the fuel to the sites of combustion. The process was regulated by valves, so the network was centralized, but each consumer could adjust the amount of gas to be used up. Murdoch installed the first system of this kind in Soho by 1802, than a more sophysticated one in a Manchester cotton mill in 1805. (At the beginning they never imagined any use of such network outside the industrial areas, but of course the real break through was when it reached the homes of the citizens – this happened first in France, but this is a different story.)
Gas-lamp
- – centralized system
- – separating the combustible material from the combustion site
- – serves mainly industrial lighting
- – its history and scale similar to the railway’s
Gas
- – industrial byproduct
- – produced from the distillation of coil to coke
- – closely related to industry
- – industry is both its producer and main consumer
- – creates a new industry, the lighting service
- – develops the public interest for consuming the new illumination-service; the result is a pipe-network to which nearly all homes are connected
At the beginning of the 1800s, gas lightning is rapidly spreading in England, initially used in production halls and public spaces, and then in households. The latter is a dramatic change in everyday life, as fire has meant the soul of the house so far. Moreover, gas meant not just the appearance of a new device in homes but also the mandatory connection to a remote service provider via the pipes (although in London, from the beginning of the 18th century there was wired drinking water, which meant a similar bond to a centralized system). In England, in the 1820’s, every city operated a gas-lightning network, and in the 50s the pipeline reached several villages as well.
Gas flame is
- – bright
- – dangerous (poisoning and explosion)
- – extensive flame
- – burns at at any angle
- – consistent
- – does not require supervision
- – can be controlled in a large range
- – centrally controlled
- – remote control
- – the gas valve is the ancestor of the electric switch
The flame of the gas flame is too strong to be observed with the naked eye, so it is covered with a matte glass that transforms the flame into light; thus the remote service does not provide flame, but light, in other words it detaches light from the fuel and the chemical process of combustion.
In 1886, Auer von Welsbach’s patented “Auer Mantle” further enhances the luminosity of the gas lamp and extended its dominance over electric lighting for 25 years. The Auer lamp is actually the gas version of the electric bulb, in which it is no longer the flame, but the healing “mantle” provides the lighting. (The fact that the new technology renews the old is not a new phenomenon: parallel with the invention of gas lighting new fuel, the paraffin is invented in oil lamps providing better illumination, candles are modernized by using new types of wick, which does not have to be scraped, and even the Argand lamps are renewed by using petroleum as new, more convenient fuel.)
Gas Lamps Of Budapest (1966): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLdz6PqCo2I
London’s last gaslamp lighters keep capital’s history alighthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXbguqdq84
Comet Shade Batswing Burner Gas Lamphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf0F-KzE-DE
Finally electric light triumphs over gas for very similar reasons as gas replaced oil lamps and candles a few decades earlier: it is considered dirtier and less healthier than electricity. Exhausted oxygen can be replaced with adequate ventilation, but gas light also heated its environment, which was uncomfortable in many environments. Additionally gases released during combustion have stained the environment; resulting yellow walls represented the old fashioned technology.
But the spread of electric lighting did not happen overnight. The first electric light was the Arclight, which had too intensive light to spread in homes, so it was mostly used in public lighting. It was the oldest type of carbon electrodes, and its high intensity light made it suitable for use in projectors, stage lighting, later in air defense reflectors. The illuminating arc can be created by switching high voltage between the two carbon rods in the open air, causing the tapering end of the rods to glow. At this time, the rods are slightly spaced apart, creating a high-intensity electric arc between them. The material of the carbon rods is consumed continuously, so that in order to keep the electrode spacing constant, the rods must be pushed to one another at certain intervals.
How to operate a Carbon Arcvhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d7bsCiRFLE
Carbon Arc Searchlight test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWLmKcZtb-4
The spread of electric lighting in homes is the result of the newly invented light bulb. In 1878-79, Edison patented its own electric bulb, and started to build a complete electricity network in NY. The next step is the war of currents, between the direct (DC) current of Edison’s system and the finally triumphing alternate current(AC) developed by Tesla and propagated by the Westinghouse company – but this is another story.
Exposition universelle internationale de 1900–(Paris, France) Circular panoramic view of the Champs de Mars, [no. 1] https://www.loc.gov/item/00694264/
II. The public spaces at night
Prior to the spread of public lighting of cities night streets were dangerous places:
- By a XV. century rule in Paris: every citizen in the streets must keep a lantern on the street after 9 o’clock pm., otherwise he or she may be arrested.
- 100 years later, in the XVI. century Parisian regulations changed: in November, December and January every evening before 6 pm each house must enlight a lantern at the height of the first floor in a visible place, so that the street has proper illumination.
right: Night scene. (Source: Les Nuits de Paris, Paris, 1788.)
Dark urban streets were considered as deeply infected, dangerous places for the Enlightened Absolutism, places which had to be literally enlightened. That is why the police obliged homeowners to dispose nighttime street lighting on every building. (Luis the XIV.th invented these regulations first.) In France public lighting was considered the symbol of absolutism from the 1789 french revolution until the mid’ of the XIXth century; that was the reason why aristocrats were frequently hanged on holders of lanterns by rebels, and that is why smashing streetlamps was a common form of protest against authorities.
right: Project for city illumination (1882). The Partz System for illuminating Paris involved erecting several lighting towers throughout the metropolitan area. The light source, a powerful arc-light, was to be located under the street. Strong reflectors at the top of the towers would disseminate the light. (Source: La Lumiere electrique, 1882.)
By the end of the 19th century, however, night lighting became the common attachment of the metropolis.
Illuminated shop windows foreshadowed the turn of public space into advertising media.
Artificial lighting has also transformed the world of theaters, public performances. Not only the light effects that can be changed with the switches at a glance, but the abundant amount of light has also fundamentally influenced the attractions – such as panoramas and dioramas.
WROCŁAW – Panorama Racławicka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSOBUz5cW0k
Panorama Racławicka, Wrocław 21 marca 2015 r. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLNoOpOIXTw
Le Diorama de Daguerre :
reconstitution sur maquette d’une séance du Diorama Théâtre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoCZscSBeOE
How to Make a Diorama – Awesome Tips! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ganUXUa0sw
Important remark – Glass in Architecture:
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851.
The Crystal Palace used 400 tons of glass, each 125-cm-sq (49-in.-sq) pane produced by blowing a cylinder, cutting it, and flattening it by reheating. With its modular construction, a team of 80 workers was able to install 18,932 panes in a week, resulting in a total surface array of glass of 85,000 m2 (900,000 sq ft). The glass was supported by 3300 cast-iron columns and held in place by 330 km (205 mi) of wood sash.
