Public street lights play a fundamental role in our experience of the city at night, yet we rarely notice street lights themselves: the lighting masts, ‘furniture’, or the quality of the light.

Presented by King’s College London’s Joanne Entwistle, her colleagues from the Configuring Light Team at the LSE, and lighting designers at Speirs+Major (S+M), this talk will highlight the social relevance of public realm lighting for our experience of the city at night. It will focus on the importance of lighting for our way-finding and sense of safety and security, as well as the use of lighting to demarcate major landmarks that would otherwise be lost at night and to therefore help ‘brand’ the modern city.

The talk will be followed by a night walk around Aldwych and Westminster with two lighting designers, Satu Streatfield and Benz Roos from leading London lighting design firm S+M, to show the important ways in which different forms of street lighting affect our sense of
space and place. The streets of London tell the story of modern lighting, from gas lights (still in evidence in Pimlico) to sodium lighting and modern LEDs. This rich mosaic of different lighting technologies will be highlighted during the walk, and the relative qualities of light measured and described.