Using Lighting to Create Ambience

The MAG 10/22

TREND by Cristina Morozzi

Our living rooms are the perfect example of choosing the right lighting. Each room in the house needs its own lighting to enjoy the space and create the right ambience.

Giuseppe Rotunno, a well-known cinematographer who was born in 1923, argued that “if the suburbs of cities were better lit, aggression and crime would decrease, because darkness hides and frightens.” Federico Fellini, who worked with Rotunno, said, “for me cinema is light, it cannot exist without light, and Rotunno represents light, the salvation of film. In cinema, light is ideas, feeling, color, depth, atmosphere, style, storytelling, poetic expression: Giuseppe Rotunno for cinema was exactly that”. If we take to heart Federico Fellins’s  remarks, we realize how important lighting is in our homes.

Our living rooms are the perfect example of choosing the right lighting. Each room in the house needs its own lighting to enjoy the space and create the right ambience, even when there isn’t a lot of natural light. The modern living room has evolved from a space reserved for welcoming important guests to a space where a family relaxes and enjoys time together, meaning that living room lighting must be multifunctional.

A central pendant light can be a perfect place to start, but ambient and task lighting are also needed: table lamps next to sofas or chairs to create a more intimate space or to brighten a reading area. Floor lamps are both functional and decorative, especially when placed in corners, and give off a soft, diffused light. Intimist cinema, by directors like Luca Guadagnino, Mario Martone, or Matteo Garrone, are perfect for suggesting lighting solutions that create just the right ambience and style in any space.