FIVE QUESTIONS FOR... HERVÉ DESCOTTES

If you’ve ever walked the High Line in New York, driven around Columbus Circle at night, gazed at the façade of the Metropolitan Museum, admired the Sainsbury Wing of London’s National Gallery, visited the Fondation Cartier or Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris or the National Museum of Qatar, you have have had your mood and your emotions shifted and uplifted by the lighting design of a man who believes that “the best lighting should be totally invisible”.

Born in Dijon, Descottes discovered at an early age his passion for the way light can transform a space. After eight years working in France in what was then the extremely niche field of lighting design – where his projects included lighting the new Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum – he moved to New York in 1993 and founded L’Observatoire International, a firm whose stated goal is to “harmonize the role natural and artificial lighting play in revealing the drama and nuance of the built environment”.

Since then, L’Observatoire International has grown to embrace a team of 40 people working out of New York, Paris, Seoul and London. The firm, and Hervé himself, have won a slew of awards over the years, including the prestigious 2026 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture – the first time it has ever been awarded to a lighting designer. Among L’Observatoire International’s most recent commissions are a project to re-light the famous La Croisette seaside promendade in Cannes, France, and the architectural lighting scheme of New York’s iconic Flatiron Building, which is now illuminated at night for the first time in its 123-year history.

Le Sirenuse Journal sat down with Hervé during his most recent visit to Positano to ask him – among other things – what constitutes good lighting, how he approached the challenge of lighting a sensitive coastal enclave like Le Sirenuse Mare, and how properly placed lights can enhance a site’s natural beauty.

In your view, what defines good lighting?

HD: Lighting is something you don't always notice. It's there, it's always there. So, you're not sure why you feel good or why you feel bad, but often the lighting is influencing those feelings.

When you take on a project like Le Sirenuse Mare, what do you need to know before you can draw up a lighting plan?

HD: I need to know how a place will live, the purpose, the nature, the type of food, the clientele. I also need to know how people will experience the space. For example, in the case of Le Sirenuse, I wanted to develop a lighting scheme that reinforces the club's connection to the landscape and the sea. But what I discovered when I visited is that the beach club reveals itself gradually as you climb the stairs, you don’t just jump onto the deck and arrive at the restaurant. So, I tried to emphasize that aspect.

You have compared the work of the lighting designer to that of the director of photography in cinema. Both are technicians but also artists, both use their expertise to create moods and emotions. How did you go about this at Le Sirenuse Mare?

HD: I wanted to bring a special feeling, a soul. In the restaurant, nautical pendants over the tables and decorative table lamps create intimacy. The bar is lit from within, with warm light on the shelves and bottles. But the lighting is not fixed: it changes through the day, in different weather conditions, or as the days get longer or shorter. As evening approaches, the idea is to extend the sunset, the magic hour, to focus on the color and the beauty. When you spend the day on the boat or at sea, in the evening, you want some nice, soft color on your face.

Le Sirenuse Mare is not just a beach club, it’s also a verdant Mediterranean garden. Plants are living things, they grow, they sway in the breeze. How do you light nature?

HD: By working with it. We used a different color temperature for the vegetation and tree lighting to emphasize the green of the vegetation. Spotlights mounted in the trees work in two ways: they build a soft glow in the canopy and project leaf shadows onto the floor below, creating a moonlight effect that ties the dining terraces back to the landscape.

It accentuates the landscape but also makes it very cinematic. Light filters through the leaves and the branches. They soften it and create moving shadows.

Is there a monument, famous building or landscape feature you’d love to be given the chance to light? And if so, how would you do it?

HD: The Fontana di Trevi. It is such a beautiful and romantic piazza in the heart of Rome. I would light the rocks rather than the water, using a warm, candle-like light.

Portrait of Hervé Descottes © Pamela Berkovic

Photos of Le Sirenuse Mare © Roberto Salomone