Light and architecture: art that reimagines Vitoria Cathedral

Urban light art is experiencing an unprecedented boom. Its visual impact is immediate, often overwhelming, making it one of the artistic expressions that best integrates technology and sensory experimentation. It allows us to rediscover urban spaces, transforming them into scenarios for new narratives and reinterpretations. However, its nature is ephemeral. It does not last over time, nor does it leave a tangible trace. It excites, and then it goes away. No video or photograph can fully capture the intensity of its live presence. With a few exceptions.

Among these exceptional works is the work of Catalan designer and creator Josep Poblet (Vila-seca, 1994), one of the emerging voices in light festivals since he burst onto the scene at Llum Barcelona 2024 with his Lux Domus , a sober, introspective and reflective work that recently reached its peak in Vitoria Cathedral, during the Umbra Festival.

The festival revolved around the motto Art is Peace , a premise that 40 artists from various parts of the world, including Australia, Korea, Argentina, Italy, France and the Netherlands, have reflected on and made people reflect. Lux Domus, Josep Poblet's first major solo work, was one of them and its main challenge was to unfold in a setting like the Vitoria Cathedral, the second largest church in Spain. The piece is a light installation that creates a feeling of contemplation and spirituality, in a kind of introspective journey that each artist makes alone. The key is in the Fresnel lenses, which generate the optical illusion of a light that curves upwards like arches, like those of a Gothic cathedral. "It is an effect that is not common in nature and I wanted people to feel something different when they enter. I wanted to surprise without overwhelming," explains Poblet, whose clear intention is to stand out from the most spectacular proposals.

Light effect The lenses create the optical illusion of light bending upwards in the form of arcs.

The original inspiration for Lux Domus comes from his childhood, when he would frequent his mother’s hometown, Pont de Suert, and enter its small local church: “I wanted to recreate that feeling of architecture that envelops you and protects you,” he explains. A memory that is a common thread that has accompanied him since childhood and that, in some way, underpins much of his work. Because it is precisely his childhood that has marked his later dedication.

His professional path has not been linear at all. With a beginning linked to the studies of Economics and Music – he is a good violinist – his life took an unexpected turn in the United States. “I was 24 years old and it was like a 'click'; something made me realise that I wanted to dedicate my life to something that really fulfilled me.” A moment of vital clarity that reconnected him again with his childhood, with the long hours that as a child he spent building, creating, playing with materials. That revelation led him to study a master's degree in Product Design at Elisava, the School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona.

He then began working in Jordi Canudas’ design studio, where he learned a trade that was essentially manual, working with prototypes and developing lighting structures from the very basics, without being swept away by the extreme technology that dominates the sector. “We focus on the essential, on the materials and on the light itself, without getting lost in high technology,” he explains. A philosophy that he would later transfer to Lux Domus .

While many proposals focus on visual spectacles and explosions of colour, Lux Domus seeks the opposite: silence, calm and contemplation. The soft lighting and curved shapes invite visitors to sit on the floor, to stop and let themselves be enveloped by the atmosphere. “I like people to take it easy, to come in and stay, to breathe the space. Some people lie down on the floor, others close their eyes,” he says.

Josep Poblet's next project is a tribute to the peasantry of Camp de Tarragona

Behind the magic of Lux Domus there are also numbers: 36 LED light points, each surrounded by eight Fresnel lenses, forming a total of 288 lenses that generate the optical illusion. The designer made each piece by hand, in a process that lasted two months, working 10 or 12 hours a day. “They were two very intense months, of pure repetition, but very rewarding. Working with wood has something special,” he says.

His work has travelled from Barcelona to France, to the Aix-en-Provence Biennial of Art and Light and later to Vitoria. He is also preparing for other festivals. Although he also has miniature projects, such as designer lamps, his great dream is to materialise another large installation: one that, on a human scale, represents the path of the sun over a Catalan farmhouse, inspired by the rural life of his grandparents, which is deeply rooted in the entire family. The light simulates the passing of the hours in just ten minutes, and the shadows of the trees and the house move before the eyes of the spectator. “It is a tribute to that peasant world of the Camp de Tarragona that is disappearing. My grandfather did everything in the countryside, and I wanted to capture that daily routine from sunrise to sunset,” he explains excitedly.

If all goes well, this work could see the light of day at an upcoming festival that is still being finalised. “It is a very ambitious project, but I am very excited about it. The idea is to perceive the passage of time in an accelerated manner, so that the spectator feels how light shapes rural life,” he explains.

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Meanwhile, his life continues, as he says, “like a boat that is always taking on water.” “It is hard work, you never know what will happen the following year. You always have to be generating new projects, proposing things, moving. But it is also very enriching,” he says. Like many creators, Josep Poblet combines his projects with teaching. He teaches at the Escola Superior de Disseny (ESDi) in Sabadell and at the Instituto Europeo di Design in Barcelona. A balance that is certainly fragile and exhausting, as he admits, but which allows him to continue with a job that fills him, at least with light.