The relighting of the ancient Imperial Forums of the City of Rome took place in April 2015, the result of the work of Vittorio Storaro, a lighting designer and Oscar-winning cinematographer, and his daughter, Francesca Storaro, a well-known architect and lighting designer.


The Imperial Forums are a prominent archeological site. At one time, large buildings surrounded the public squares at the site. The public squares were constructed during Rome’s early Imperial Period (generally considered to be the third and fourth century), and each square was named after the emperor who built it.


Today, the forums appear to be a disorderly collection of ruins. However, they still contain evidence of their one-time architectural splendor.


As a way to try to restore some of that past glory, the institutes responsible for the forums sought special night illumination. The institutes commissioned Vittorio Storaro to create a new artistic approach to the illumination of the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Nerva, and the Forum of Trajan (which includes the well-known Trajan’s Column).


Storaro, working with his daughter, employed differentiated lighting to emphasize the different textures, as well as their unique architecture. His idea was to “write” with light and tell the story of the squares.


Before the Storaros began their work, the institutes made it clear that they wanted the most advanced and efficient light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires to ensure minimum energy consumption. The institutes also attached equal importance to the long useful life of the luminaires. One reason was to keep any future maintenance work in the archeologically sensitive area to a minimum.


Once aware of these requirements, the Storaros created a design using luminaires with flexible and precise light distributions. The Storaros selected ERCO lighting equipment.


The resulting various levels of luminous flux from the luminaires ended up creating a hierarchy of architectural details. Uniform wallwashing of structural elements, as well as pinpoint wallwashing, purposely direct the views of visitors. In fact, the texture of the lighting creates a three-dimensional effect.