ZENITHAL LIGHT

Very few doctoral dissertations make for great books, books that readers architect Elias Torres's Zenithal Light is one of them. This album of thousands of photographs collected over years of research and travel, carefully classified, sometimes more than ten to a page, catalogues the tremendous variety of spaces that generate zenithal light, sunlight captured filtering downward from domes, skylights, towers and the tops of alleyways. Torres begins with intimate interior spaces and concludes in open city streets; in every case the effect is beautiful. The book's final chapter continues his playful codification, offering schematic drawings to accompany photographs of 11 cardboard boxes Torres filled with a wide variety of familiar, funny and strange objects and pierced to allow viewers to observe the effects of the zenithal light filtering through their interiors. A die-cut foldout cover allows readers to demonstrate the property themselves.