An opera house on the European shore of the Bosphorus, returned to use after decades of quiet. The stucco had been cleaned, the boxes re-gilded, the stage machinery replaced. What the building still needed was light that belonged to it: light able to hold a foyer at dusk without touching the ceiling paintings, and to follow a hundred years of plaster detail without flattening it.

The foyer was the hardest room. Too much light and the gilt shouts; too little and the marble goes grey. We hung the Myriad Light discs in a loose constellation above the stair, each one turning slowly on its own axis, so the warm glow lands on the ceiling and comes back as reflection rather than as source. Guests see light on the surfaces, never a lamp in their eyes. Out in the side loggia, where the audience steps between acts, the Medusa Outdoor glass forms sit along the low wall, hand-shaped and weatherproof, carrying the same warmth the interior has into the open air.

Light that keeps the age of a room

Restoration is an argument about time, and lighting usually loses it. We chose fittings that read as objects rather than equipment: copper allowed to dull, glass that still carries the marks of the hand that shaped it. Nothing was fixed to the historic fabric. Every suspension hangs from the new steelwork, every wall piece from a discreet plate, so the house can be returned to its bare state if a future restorer disagrees with us.

The building opened again in the autumn of 2021. At the first interval the loggia filled with people, and nobody looked up at the lamps. That was the aim. The house was here first. We only switched on the light.