Light-planning: Gabriele Allendorf, light identity, München
Winner in the “Building Technologies” category at the Iconic Award 2014 On a trip, Gabriele Allendorf, light planner from Munich, observed a little girl blowing bubbles - over and over and over again. It never got tired to dip the small plastic rod with the opening in its soapy water and to blow and blow again. Fascinated by so much dedication, Gabriele Allendorf spoke to the little girl and asked why she kept producing new bubbles. The girl replied that she wished so much that the dazzling bullets remained and would not burst. Then the lighting designer from the distant German city promised to build soap bubbles that could not go away. This promise came back to her for the Pariser Höfe project in Stuttgart: her task was to illuminate the inner courtyard and the foyer of the inner-city complex. She saw the little girl in front of her, making soap bubbles in the courtyard of this building. In the planning process, the soap bubbles finally transformed into beautiful rectangles that turn around and play in the wind. This is how the chandelier AnnA was created, which, with delicate elegance and a play of shadows, gives the modern building a lightness that only a child can play. The family of lights has been expanded to include two indoor lights that take on the shape of the rectangle and illuminate the rather sober foyer in a similarly playful way.
