Lighting - Issue 03 June 2018

historic monuments, was something of an uphill struggle. The Light-Up Yokohama festival in 1986 – where she was commissioned to light 12 historic post-Meiji (post-1912) buildings, attracting 800,000 people over a three-week period – was the culmination of her voluntary proof-of-the-pudding tour of the country lighting up monuments at her own expense.

Ishii’s half-century career has encompassed an enormous and diverse range of projects. In Japan, Osaka and Himeji Castles; the Akashi Straits and the Yokohama Bay Bridges; the Heisei Building at the Tokyo National Museum; the Gifu World Fresh Water Aquarium; the station building of Tokyo Station; Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, and Ebisu Garden Place. Internationally there has been the Royal Reception Pavilion in Jeddah; Northwestern National Life Insurance Co HQ in Minneapolis; the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre; Melbourne Centre in Australia, among many others.

Her 1989 redesign of the lighting for the 333m-high Tokyo Tower, the world’s tallest self-supported steel tower, attracted international attention. She won an IESNA award for the Fantasy of Light Electricity Pavilion at the International Garden and Greenery Exposition (Osaka, 1990) and again for the Rainbow Bridge (Tokyo, 1994), one of her more celebrated and inspirational schemes. One of the first designers to make extensive use of coloured light in exterior schemes, Ishii’s application of colour is always rooted in a clear rationale, informed by symbolic meaning and cultural association.

She has designed lighting for the cities of Osaka, Hakodate, Himeji and Kurashiki, and famously created a moonlit mise-en-scene for the Unesco World Heritage Site gasshō-zukuri (traditional thatched house) village at Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture. The heart of the concept was the figurative representations the Japanese have for the light of the full moon – hanging and floorstanding paper lanterns diffusing gentle light through traditional washi paper.

‘That’s what inspired me to shine this tranquil light
upon the entire village,’ she told NHK World Japan.
‘There’s a lookout spot on the mountainside with a
great view of everything. I set the floodlights at the foot
of the platform. And we’re talking the full moon here,
so one angle wasn’t going to be enough. The village is
surrounded by mountains. I set up more floodlights
use of coloured lighting in exterior
schemes, Ishii’s application of colour
is always rooted in a clear rationale’