Lighting up Ancient Buildings Brings Out Crowds

All over France, a new tradition is bringing citizens and visitors into the streets at night. It’s called Les Nuits Lumiere, or Illuminated Nights, and combines classical music and large images projected on buildings, bridges and other surfaces. Using the lines of the ancient buildings in the city, like the Palace of Jacques Coeur and the gigantic cathedral, the indented porticos, archways, and marble gargoyles provide a perfect backdrop for the carefully sized images, that dance on the walls. The city has set up five 10 minute shows that run on an endless loop beginning about about 10:30, (when it’s fully dark here) to midnight. We saw similar light shows in Chartres and they are catching on fast here.

To find each of the five light shows in Bourges, you follow the trail of blue lamplights and enter into a courtyard, or the front of a palace, and watch the images project up onto the marble or limestone of the buildings. It’s simple; blown up medieval characters taken from tapestries, or figures of Burgundian-era town officials sliding across the bottom of a row of arched windows. The giant figures fade in, fade out, angels appear and then fade, and crowds are conjured up using the detailed lights of a series of projectors. The sides of the buildings or the window sashes light up intermittently, adding to the effect that is mesmerizing.

Ken Burns would have love this technology, it’s much like what he does on a television screen, except this is much, much bigger, shorter and it’s all done outside for the public to view for free.