Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Tag: london lumiere

  • Case Study: Lumiere London

    Last week I wrote about the value of urban lighting.

    Another case study worth looking at is Lumiere London. It was a four day light festival that took place in January, which is normally a pretty quiet and dark month. This past year in London the festival saw over 1 million visitors who spent over £22 million.

    Here’s a time lapse video of the festival in action:

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESxG9KsaeJo&w=560&h=315]

    Click here if you can’t see the embedded video.

    It’s obviously a temporary festival, but it’s a great example of how lighting can transform a city. After the event, the Guardian (which gave it 4/5 stars) talked about the city itself becoming the story. They also said that it managed to “unzip and open out the city” in a way that politicians and town planners often struggle to do.

    Sounds like fun.