If people think they look better, they do look better. A woman who believes she looks like a million dollars will send Plato packing. But it's a realization new to architects, interior designers, and lighting consultants, the vast majority of whose clients, like Plato's cave dwellers, spend most of their life indoors. The perception of light affects you in a personal way. It brings about a sense of elation.
Light also helps determine how clients evaluate a job.
His New York-based company, Focus Lighting, is responsible for the lighting design of Le Cirque 2000, the surreal Manhattan restaurant in the Palace Hotel. A believer in the exhilarating power of kaleidoscopic shimmer, Gregory designs with fixtures that combine sparkle with movement. Lack of visual stimulation in a room, he says, is very tiring. I had such an argument with the owner of a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Once he saw the results, he dispatched me to install fixtures over the coffee table in every single one of his apartments and houses.