As part of the current Amsterdam Light Festival, Serge Schoemaker Architects and digiluce have realised a 12 meter long alley surrounded by a three-dimensional matrix of 2000 handmade lamps. Called the Alley of Light, the lighting matrix consists of 320 illuminated vertical lines suspended within a steel cage.
Each illuminated vertical line hosts six handmade lamps and each lamp is made of two LEDs encased in an acrylic tube. The tubes are wrapped with white paper and sealed to be waterproof using heat shrink. In addition to the 2,000 lights, the installation includes 1.5 kilometers of electrical cable.
Raised 1 meter above street level, visitors first climb a few steps before entering the illuminated space. The sense of space and the atmosphere in the passage are constantly changing due to the programmed lighting configurations. The variations in lighting intensity generate a unique spatial experience: when all the lights are on, the space feels private and intimate but as soon as the lighting begins to dim, the space begins to feel liquid and the limits of the alley fade. Music by Machinefabriek accompanies the experience.
You can admire the Alley of Light until January 4th 2015. The installation is located on Jonas Daniël Meijerplein (between the Jewish Historical Museum and the Portuguese-Israeli Synagogue). It is open daily from 5 until 10 pm.
If you can’t visit the installation in person, you can experience it via video.