Milestones as thriving and communal living spaces are considered evocative places and fundamental elements of every city. Today, the role and position of the milestones in the lives of the citizens of the city at night, has turned them to the main elements of city cognition. Therefore, milestones are decisive in creating the identity of the city which connects citizens’ image of day and night landscape. Due to the importance of milestones in legibility of mind patterns, management of night landscape for enhancement of people’s satisfaction from city spaces and guidance of public desirability is doubled in significance. Currently, night landscape of Tehran is still intricate and illegible despite the temporary lighting programs by urban managers and expenditure in the private sector. In many cases, building lighting does not match the significant milestones and their identity. This article with focusing on commercial complex commercials as coarse milestones, evaluates some new projects dealing with lighting.
Initially, lighting objectives and the most important principles as an indicator to assess the current situation were summarized and three commercial complexes (sign) in milestones (on mid-scale) of Tehran were evaluated in the following. Based on the findings of this article, it firstly appeared that the qualitative distance of Tehran night landscape from basic criteria is resulted from the absence of expertise and lighting designers and landscape architects involved in the projects while interviews with design and implementation teams revealed the following results:
1. In the absence of lighting principals, designers and the employers, sacrifice the public's right to have a legible city read for the sake of private interests and rights. Setting criteria for guiding the designers -in stage of lighting design, licensing and supervising of the project to the end- is necessarily required.
2. In the current circumstances and in lack of regulations, if the lighting designers and architects consider themselves as committed to the general principles of design, positive outcomes can be expected from lighting projects while inconformity of designer and architect can undermine the results. More importantly, the employer interference can reduce the quality of design. In other words, in the absence of standards or a jury for expertise support, the absolute rule of wealth over the city, including lighting continues.
3. As a result of the above, the result of large-scale projects and the emerging technologies that manifest the power and strength of his wealth to the city can send wrong message to the citizens: Significant but wrongly ornamented signs in important areas of the city whose beautiful pattern and decoration in the world is considered the leading standard. The hazards of this perpetual misunderstanding are over the previous two problems; because when the public taste is drawn into banality, double efforts are required to pay for its improvement. Prevalence of false understanding of "what is good" can be found in lighting colors and sometimes in various prodigal lightings of residential buildings.
Preparation and implementation of a comprehensive document for lighting in Tehran can provide an appropriate mechanism to achieve the desired night landscape. Meanwhile, lighting design and implementation of buildings especially commercial ones, without management of a city as a whole, targets costs and economic feasibility while neglects its impact on the understanding of public art and the national loss.