Have you noticed how lighting has changed everywhere? We all know the traditional light bulb is being fazed    out for various reasons but do we really know what it is all being replaced by? New lighting teniques and products are everywhere now. We saw all the holiday lights competitions where you had plastic figures with light bulbs in them making them glow to elaborate song synchronized small LED lights of stringed glows rapid fire. Two quite different things but in the same competitions.  Now it seems that we are leaving the spot light era into the techno era even when it comes to traditional holidays.

Have you noticed the lighting 103 stories above Manhattan in the Empire State building lately? It looks like a bouncing juke    box the last two holiday seasons.  There used to be soft lights that stayed on all night long. Now it is bouncing changeable lights in geometric patterns all night. This new idea is the work of Anthony Malkin of The Empire State Reality Trust.  He likes to take credit for improvements in the building and is now taking credit for the new exterior lighting system.  Two years ago Malkin had thousands of remote controlled LED lights installed atop the building.  A big difference from the old spotlights that had colored glass slid in by hand over them to change color.

Given the new tools now offered to us lighting is changing everywhere. The new designs on New York’s most famous building is thanks to lighting designer, Mark Brickman who has been known to design lighting for entertaining concerts and shows. Do we really want our Empire State Building looking like a rock concert? Brickmen did light shows for Pink Floyd Concerts and has elaborate lighting at his home.  He has endless possibilities to choose from so his home has a completely different look during the day from what it looks like at  night.

As LED lighting gets to be more and more available it is being joined with wood and glass, even concrete. It is no longer an afterthought. It is being included in blueprints and being included as a part of the building construction.  Towers like the Wilshire Grand in Los Angeles has the entire upper levels encrusted in lights. Older more established buildings like the Empire State are all getting a lighting makeover.  Seattle’s Space Needle and Paris’s Eiffel Tower are equipped with LED lights now.  There is lighting on the face of a Miami Hotel that looks like people dirty dancing at about 50 feet in height for all to see.  There is even now a South Korean skyscraper that uses LED displays to create the illusion of invisibility.

Now the sky really is the limit when it comes to lighting from Korea to New York.