LUCE estratti LUCE 326_Capoduri_Alexander Bellman | Page 7

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Through courage,
research and visions
An interview with Alexander Bellman
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that are quite substantial. Personally, I love
the feeling of unpredictability that moment
gives me: those are the final steps, at the end
of a long work effort, but everything still can
change. I must be ready, and this awareness
for me is a great stimulus for creativity.
Then there are numerous anecdotes, some are
even curious. For example, in those moments I
like to interview people, especially if they are
not aware they are talking to the designer.
Once I pretended I was a guard at an
exhibition I had just designed, and I collected,
r. Bellman, you say that you are “moved
by the will to draw light”, and in this
way you inspire an approach to the project
that is romantically visionary and premonitory.
However, observing carefully, one also feels
a strong humanist and earthly sense, made
of precision and ambition to control…
As an architect, I am convinced that light
is the most difficult thing to draw, and
therefore also to think of and especially,
to foresee. I am a Virgo, I have an obsession
for control, and drawing, for an architect,
is the main instrument for research and
synthesis. It is an anchor and also a pair of
wings to fly with. Moreover, we currently really
have many instruments, and we, at C14, really
like to unite traditional techniques – hand
drawn sketches and drawings – with advanced
virtual systems for visual experimentation
and increasingly complex calculation models.
However, it seems rather reductive to state that
we translate our visions or our inspiration into
technique. I would rather say that ours is an
artistic vision whose roots dig into technique,
but that at the same time constantly battles
and fights with it. And it is from these
dialectics, from this unsurmountable otherness
of an element compared to another, that
our best designs were created.
Which stories and impressions connected
with your lighting design do you like
to reveal and share?
The final test, when everything is lit up and
calibrated together, is the greatest emotion.
Nothing is comparable to the “surprise”
brought by reality, the first time a project as
a whole is lit, the so-called fine-tuning that
is carried out on site. A site where, often,
one must improvise and also make changes
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LUCE 326 / LIGHTING DESIGNERS
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together with the signatures on the attendance
list, some very different comments, from
“marvellous!” to “you cannot see a thing, who
did the lights?” I also found it quite amusing
that, many years ago, at the inauguration
of our first entirely LED project, I received
a number of compliments for having resisted
and having continued to use halogen lights.
Moving away from the individual, we need
to remember the C14 “group”. For many
designers, being a segment of a team
is the key to success…
Undoubtedly. We are a group that works
together, we help one another and we
come from the most diverse places in Italy
and around the world. The fundamental
characteristic of C14 is that everyone has the
possibility and the duty to participate actively
in the creative phase of a project, regardless