YOU MIGHT NOT REALISE IT, but Arnold Chan's work is everywhere. If you've sipped martinis at Felix, eaten dim sum at Dragon-i, sat in the Cathay lounge at Chek Lap Kok airport or strolled through Canary Wharf in London, you've seen his creations. But while we might admire architecture, we don't really think about the way it's been lit.
Yet as Chan says: 'Lighting gives architecture an extra dimension. It's an enhancer. On its own it doesn't do anything. But if you know how to apply it and you light the right things in the right way, it gives space an extra dimension.'
The job of a lighting designer is a tricky one. Chan says lighting must never steal the architect's show. 'I believe a lighting designer shouldn't have a style of his own.' Although, he says, lighting designers are far from silent partners. 'Often, when you develop a relationship with a designer, you become their sounding board. And if you're familiar with their work, as they're generating their ideas, they'll be asking you what you think and whether or not it's appropriate in that context.'
And it helps to be adaptable: 'If I'm to do my job well, I'm there to follow that particular architect's style and language, so if I'm working with Philippe Starck, it's theatrical and it's wit. If I'm working with John Pawson, it's restraint and it's clean lines. I would never try to impose an idea that I had with Philippe Starck on John Pawson; it's like oil and water.'
Chan was born in Hong Kong. He trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London and ended up settling there. His decision to specialise in light was accidental. 'I was working for a lighting manufacturer in Italy, designing their showrooms. And in order to design showrooms, I had to understand what I was supposed to display, so that got me into understanding a little bit about technical lighting.' He went on to take a degree in lighting engineering, which, with his architectural training, evolved neatly into lighting design.
When Chan founded his company, Isometrix, in 1984, it was just him working from home. Now he employs 44 people and has offices in London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong. He returns to Hong Kong every month.
Chan's current projects in Hong Kong include M1NT, a branch of the shareholders' club (it is owned by members, who also receive a share of the profits) that opened in London in February last year, the new Nobu restaurant at the InterContinental Hotel and another restaurant, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, in the Landmark, all of which are due to open this month.
