San Diego, a daytime city that celebrates the beach and sun, could be a nighttime city where people gather to watch light shows, discover hidden building details and boost the economy as well.

Peter Fink (Studio Fink )

That’s the vision from British artist Peter Fink, chosen six years ago to relight the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and now being considered to work his luminous magic on the planned $1.2 billion redevelopment of Seaport Village. While he was in town recently to review both projects, he sat down to talk about what other cities were doing and how San Diego can brand itself, like Paris, as a city of light.

“Every city competes with cities regionally, nationally and internationally,” he began. “And I think what attracts people to a city obviously is education and employment, and the possibility to start a business, work for a government agency, a hospital, whatever. But what also determines these decisions is the livability of the city and how it would provide for life quality for all members of the family — children, parents, grandparents — and how safe the city is in daytime, nighttime, how easy it is travel and also what culture offers and sport.”


San Diego offers great potential, he said, given its geography, the Navy’s presence, the proximity to Mexico. But the one opportunity the region has yet to seize is developing what he calls the “nighttime economy.”

“If, for example, tourists who come to San Diego will spend one or two more days here because of the nighttime life and opportunity, it’s a huge ‘spend’ to the city,” he said. “For the city to promote itself as a key nighttime destination on the coast, it needs to have a scenic skyline that’s memorable, that’s a brand for the city.”

Peter Fink’s design for the San Diego-Coronado Bridge would employ interactive lighting on the roadbed and color-changing uplighting on the bridge piers. (File photo/Studio Fink )

Fink starts with the Coronado bridge, for which he won a design competition in 2010 from the San Diego Unified Port District. Now projected to cost about $8 million, with funding from port tenants’ art budgets, the plan is to light the roadbed with LEDs that vary in light intensity according to traffic flow, and bridge piers that change hues with the season and holidays. The goal is to turn the lights on in 2019, the 50th anniversary of the bridge and the 250th anniversary of San Diego’s founding.


“If you come to San Diego as a person visiting the city for the first time, you will look for something that orients you,” he explained. “If you’re in Paris, the Eiffel Tower is something you see from all over the central core and, without realizing it, you’re using it as a moment of orientation. I think it would be the same with the bridge.”

Seaport San Diego, the planned redevelopment of Seaport Village, would include a 480-foot observation tower. This conceptual rendering shows lasers beaming from the project but artist Peter Fink thinks that special lighting, including lasers, might be employed at the spire. (AVRP Skyport Studios )

The next project Fink is eyeing is the 480-foot observation tower at the Seaport Village redevelopment. A conceptual drawing suggests laser beams might be projected from the development, but they also could emanate from the tower, creating something of a lighthouse effect, drawing attention to this key, historic spot on San Diego Bay.


“Where you have synergy between Seaport project and the bridge is quite apparent,” he said, “because the vertical spire of Seaport and the bridge and the edge of the water could provide the iconic skyline that San Diego is looking for.”

But it’s not just monumental lighting projects that a city needs. Ground-level highlights and points of discovery can be revealed through lighting effects, and that arrangement could help draw visitors and keep them engaged long after the sun goes down.

“More people are spending more time during the evening than during the day because they socialize, are able to eat out with friends, have a drink, go to the theater,” he said. “And so, in effect, the pattern of expenditure on social entertainment is increasingly moving into the weekend and nighttime economy.”

Fink speaks of a project he worked on in the Italian hill town of Bergamo. Its central square, Piazza Vecchio (old square) was temporarily dressed in pink for a daytime experience and then nighttime lighting created a completely different experience. More than 250,000 visited “Piazza Rosa” (pink square) for the 16-day festival.


Beyond this art installation, permanent but subtle lighting calls attention to windows, alcoves and other architectural features in this and many other medieval Italian towns that visitors might have missed during the day.

At Seaport San Diego, the replacement for the existing specialty shopping center, Fink is in talks with the project architect, AVRP Skyport Studios, to light the promenades, landscaping and new buildings that would keep visitors’ attention and prompt them to buy another cocktail or order another dish at a sidewalk cafe.

For example, visitors could wave their arms, setting off sensors that vary the light intensity at a particular place.

The port’s one-percent-for-art policy would require the developers to spend more than $10 million in art installations, and lighting effects could be just one of them.


But that’s just beginning of what the port and other public agencies and private developers could do to could create a “necklace” of lighted highlights around the entire bay, in Balboa Park, Mission Bay and other activity centers in the region.

Crown Plaza in Chicago’s Millennium Park includes glass panels depicting photographs of miscellaneous Chicagoans -- an example Peter Fink gives for ways to use lighting techniques during daytime. (Braden Kowitz/Wikipedia Commons )

Even daytime lighting effects offer opportunities for public engagement. Pictures can be projected onto plates of glass, as at Chicago’s Crown Fountain in Millennium Park. Manmade rainbows can be generated by projecting sunlight through fine mists.

“When you see a rainbow in the sky, your heart opens up,” Fink said. “You know everyone feels that.”


As for cost, Fink said the price of LEDs and their extended lifespan has made extensive lighting programs much more affordable to cities and property owners.

The three rivers lighting project that Peter Fink worked on more than a decade ago shows how parks can be enlivened with night-time lighting. (Studio Fink )

As in Pittsburgh, where he worked on a riverfront lighting plan, San Diego could develop a civic lighting master plan that sets standards for roadways, walkways, buildings, signs and public spaces.

“It’s starting to be quite boring,” he said of San Diego’s present nighttime lighting habits. “Now, I think San Diego is aiming for quality, but a quality which is comparable to premier cities elsewhere.”


Peter Fink (in green glasses) discusses ideas for San Diego at the AVRP Skyport Studios architectural office. (Roger Showley/UT )

Peter Fink and his projects

Born in London in 1948 and raised in the former Czechoslovakia, Fink returned to his hometown after graduating in engineering in 1968. He then branched out into sculpture and philosophy. He founded Studio Fink in London in 2013 to focus on cityscape lighting designs. He also teaches and writes about public art and has received numerous awards for his work. He’s also known for wearing neon green and orange prescription glasses.

Power Plant is a series of light installations by Studio Fink artists to enliven parks and botanical gardens at night. (Studio Fink )

Power Plant: A sound-and-light art installation has been created in more than 30 parks and botanical gardens around the world. Large numbers of visitors walk through a nighttime experience that includes flashing and flickering color effects.


Canary Wharf Tower, also known as One Canada Square, employs kinetic lights and lasers visible up to 25 miles away. (Studio Fink )

Canary Wharf, London: A kinetic light and laser installation on top of the 50-story Canary Wharf Tower, One Canada Square, can be seen from 25 miles away. On New Year’s Eve, a digital countdown on the tower’s western face is accompanied by a fireworks display and sound piece from maritime fog horns.

Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, England, draws night-time crowds with its interactive fountain court and new pavilion. (Studio Fink )

Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, England: Visitors walk through an interactive fountain and new pavilion that at night becomes a stimulating public realm drawing people round the clock.


Piazza Vecchio became Piazza Rosa in a temporary art installation feature bright colors and accent night lighting. (Studio Fink )

Piazza Rosa, Bergamo, Italy: Piazza Vecchio in this city northeast of Milan was transformed into an art and landscape project of bright colors and medicinal plants, trees and shrubs that drew more than 250,000 visitors during a 16-day festival.


roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley