The Architecture of Natural Light
By Henry Plummer
Thames & Hudson, £29.95
FT Bookshop price: £24.95

Light plays a primary role in architectural expression so it is surprising that this 256-page hardback appears to be the first to consider the effects of natural light in contemporary buildings.

Plummer, who teaches architectural theory and design at the University of Illinois, trained as an architect and photographer and uses this background to show how buildings are shaped into optical instruments that “obstruct or admit, focus or disperse, absorb or reflect” natural light to transcend the physical space.

A brief historical overview of illumination’s architectural use touches on the science of light, its physical presence in impressionist paintings and the mystical qualities of stained-glass filtration to evoke “an ethereal presence at the outer limits of material existence”.

Seven chapters explore specific qualities of natural light, followed by international case-studies – 52 projects altogether – including work by influential architects such as Tadao Ando, Herzog & de Meuron, Peter Zumthor. Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Rafael Moneo, Jean Nouvel and Toyo Ito. Crisp images (465 in total) anchor this essentially intangible topic while Plummer’s thought-provoking text, though dense, captures the powerful, poetic qualities at his subject’s heart.