Le Pome lectronique

Intense immersive
experience
Ambient Experience and the Philips
Next Simplicity and Simplicity events, while
ground-breaking and innovative in themselves,
owe a debt to Philips 1958 Le Pome
lectronique, one of the worlds first intense
and immersive experiences.
At the World Fair in Brussels, Philips presented its technology and vision in a
futuristic pavilion of sculpted concrete with a fully automated minute display of
color sound and images. This unique multimedia experience known as Le Pome
lectronique and housed within the Philips Pavillion was conceived by Louis
Kalff and designed by the world famous architect, Le Corbusier, the architect and
composer Iannis Xenakis and the composer, Edgard Varse. Together these artists
envisioned a world striving for oneness and harmony and brought this vision to
life using multimedia in a completely new and unprecedented way.

As Le Corbusier commented at the time: Mr Kalff is one of those Dutchmen

who, through their patience, perseverance, belief and bravery, has given their
fatherland such a beautiful history. We all lived for our work alone and maybe
forgot to value the fact that someone was ceaselessly watching over everything.
And he, Mr Kalff, throughout that whole period, replied to the Board of the vast
Philips corporation: It will truly turn out well, gentlemen.

1
 All of the electronics
involved were integrated into
the pavilions walls, creating
an ambient experience

Le Corbusier combined the music composed by Edgard Varse

with a series of images depicting the evolution of mankind.
These images were complemented by visual and audio effects
including bursts of color light and music. Both music and light
were used to inject dynamism into the static space. All of the
electronics involved were integrated into the pavilions walls
creating an ambient experience - another revolutionary
concept at the time. Even more strikingly the pavilion displayed
no commercial products at all.

With its unique shape, the aluminium-coloured building Building the Philips pavilion, 1958
sketched by Le Corbusier could easily vie with the much larger
Atomium, the figurehead of the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair.
Together, these pavilions set the futuristic tone of this first
worlds fair after the Second World War and made it visible and
tangible to all. A tent-like concrete structure, with peaks sticking
out wildly in all directions, the Philips Pavilions austere frame
designed to match the restrained rhythm of the Netherlands
main pavilion.

Over one and a half million people attended the multimedia

performance Le Pome lectronique, which was presented
in the Philips Pavilion in the six months of the Worlds Fair.
Very few pavilions erected for the numerous worlds fairs have
commanded such enthusiasm.

The pavilion entrance 2

Designers working on the Roller Radio
With its unique shape,
the aluminium-coloured
building set the futuristic
tone of the world fair

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Plan of the Philips Pavilion showing the location of all light
and sound equipment

Part of its popularity came from the range of light effects used in
the performance of Le pome lectronique. Prominent among them
were socalled cran and tritrous film images that were projected
onto the walls of the Philips Pavilion. In conjunction with the film
images, areas of colour or ambiences were projected, the aim being
to heighten the psychophysiological sensations that Le Corbusier
sought to induce in visitors. Two members of staff from the Office of
Lighting Advice [Lichtadvies bureau] at Philips were put in charge of
creating the light effects, and others working at the Philips Pavilion
soon took to calling them the decorators. They were responsible
for projecting the tritrous films and ambiences onto the pavilions
walls. The efforts to create the light effects in line with Le Corbusiers
intentions ran up against serious technical problems. When Philips
General Art Director, Louis Kalff, later wrote, looking back at the
event, that the combination of the photographic images with colour
and light had been only partly successful, it was something of an
understatement.

What Philips Lightbulb Factories Ltd. sought to achieve in the

Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels Worlds Fair was a synthesis
of light, space, colour, and sound, such as never seen before, in a
demonstration that would focus less on exhibiting Philipss products
themselves than on showing what could be achieved with them.

The entrance area of the Philips Pavilion interior 4

Le Corbusier accepted the
commission mainly because
of the opportunity it gave him
to design a totally new sound
and light show
The architect, Le Corbusier, accepted the commission for the pavilion and
the demonstration mainly because of the opportunity it gave him to design
a totally new sound and light show, thus creating a Gesamtkunstwerk: an
artwork that would be a synthesis of different art forms. Le Corbusier made
his acceptance conditional on the participation of the experimental composer
Edgard Varse a Frenchman living in the United States whom he wanted to
provide the musical part of the performance.

The performance staged by Le Corbusier and Varse became known as Le

pome lectronique. It consisted of an eight-minute musical composition by
Varse combined with light effects designed by Le Corbusier, which included
film images and colour projections. Le Corbusiers script, with its detailed
instructions on which film images and projections were to be shown for each
second of Le pome lectronique, was dubbed the minutage.

This first pioneering experiment with light, color and sound within an
architectural, sculpted space marked Philips as a truly innovative organization
and laid the foundations for later explorations such as Ambient Experience
and the Next Simplicity and Simplicity events.

(From left) Louis Kalff,

Le Corbusier and Edgard Varse 5
Sketches of the Philips Pavilion

Le Pome lectronique booklet Le Pome lectronique experience