power of color."
These new forms of illumination are popular with consumers, manufacturers say, but some design-world purists are less impressed. Brooke Hodge, the curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, says in many of these cases, adding an element like light is "an odd embellishment" because it doesn't have a function.
"Light is a pleasant thing and you can use it to change the mood and atmosphere, like those watches with different colored faces," she said. "But you have to ask, `what does it do? Why is it there?'"
The push to illuminate everything isn't all frivolous, according to Lervik. He got the idea for the Brighthandle door handle, which sells in the US for about US$150, while gazing at a "do not disturb" sign in a hotel. "I thought, it might be possible to design the function of that sign into the door, to use light to communicate the same thing," Lervik explained.
It may be simply the beauty of light that is attracting so many designers to it. After all, said Leni Schwendinger, a lighting artist in New York City who is working on a project to illuminate the Coney Island
parachute jump, people love light because "it fills the eye with brightness and delights."
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