This was not going to be a typical guest speaker. Cindy Limauro and her friends knew that something special was in store as they entered their creative writing class at the University of Michigan. They took their seats, eager to absorb the advice of a theatrical icon. They wouldn’t be disappointed.
There, in the front of their classroom, stood Arthur Miller. A tall, lanky man with a frank, level gaze—he deconstructed playwriting, telling the students to always start with the truth.
Miller’s talk 30 years ago inspired Limauro, an English major, to take some theater courses. She liked it so well that she decided to also major in drama. Her new studies led to an unexpected discovery— the storytelling potential of light. “Lighting affects completely the way in which we see the world,” says Limauro, “the quality of it, the color of it, the intensity. It changes everything.”
Her discovery took over her life. She designs lighting for architecture and theater and teaches lighting design in Carnegie Mellon’s schools of drama and architecture. Her academic pursuits have also taken her to Antwerp, Belgium, where she is part of another professorship—teaching lighting design at the Higher Institute of Architectural Sciences Henry van de Velde.
While she was there last year, she listened to the city’s mayor speak of the need for stronger civic ties to education. Limauro approached him afterwards—hoping he would agree to let her students light one of the city’s buildings. She would have settled for a dilapidated structure. Instead, the mayor asked her to have the students submit plans to light one of the city’s most famous landmarks, its Royal Museum of Fine Arts.The lighting plan they created bested the work of a professional design firm that was also asked to submit ideas. Not long after the students’ plan was installed, the area—where teens would sometimes hang out after dark—became a family destination. The institute was so impressed by Limauro’s dedication and the achievement of her students that it recently honored her with the 2007 Henry van de Velde Award for Architectural Education
The lighting plan they created bested the work of a professional design firm that was also asked to submit ideas. Not long after the students’ plan was installed, the area—where teens would sometimes hang out after dark—became a family destination. The institute was so impressed by Limauro’s dedication and the achievement of her students that it recently honored her with the 2007 Henry van de Velde Award for Architectural Education.
