Art Hotels · 6

Candles are part of the fitting here, not decoration added later. The operator keeps the rooms close to the way the village used them: bare plaster, a fire in the hearth where a room has one, and small flames instead of fixed lamps. This is a separate site of the operator.

The flame reaches the plaster, the wool cover on the bed and a short circle of stone floor. Nothing in the room is lit right into the corners, so the walls appear to shift slightly as the light does. Beyond the door the lane is left almost entirely to itself.

The village keeps very little public light. Lanes between the rooms are not made bright, and the stone buildings are not picked out from outside. What you get walking between them is closer to the dark the place has always had than to a street at night.

Lanterns carry this island after dark. There is no public street lighting on the property, so paths are handled by lamps set low and by whatever people are carrying. The result is a set of small lit points rather than a lit landscape, with long gaps between them.

Light lands on the sand, the crushed coral of the path and the few steps up to each cottage. It does not reach the trees on either side or the water beyond them. Past the last lamp the island reads as shape alone, and the sky is left to do the rest.

No route here is lit end to end, and the cottages are not floodlit from outside. The dark between them is the ordinary condition of the place rather than something switched off. Anyone walking after dinner is expected to bring their own light.

A fire pit near the water is the largest light on this site. Around it the camp works with lanterns, hung or set down on the ground, and with small lamps at the tents. Nothing is mounted high, so the light never spreads far from wherever somebody put it.

The fire reaches the ring of seats, the faces around it and a wide circle of sand. Lanterns handle the walkways and the tent entrances. Everything the light touches is within a few steps of a person, which is a fair description of the whole camp after dark.

The bush around the camp is not lit. No lamp is aimed into the scrub, and the beach is left as a dark edge to the property. Yala is open country, and the camp keeps its light small and inward rather than pushing it outward.

Lamps mark the route and nothing else. The lodge sits on a forested ridge, and its light is arranged as a chain of low fittings between one cabin and the next. Away from that chain the forest holds no lighting of any kind, and is not meant to.

Each lamp covers the boards under it, a handrail and a couple of steps. Walk on and the next one takes over. Inside the cabins the light stops at the open wall, so from the path a cabin reads as a lit shape with the forest closing in around it.

The forest is deliberately left out of the scheme. Nothing is aimed into the canopy, and no light follows the ridge line. Guests hear a great deal more of the surrounding forest than they ever see of it, which is the ordinary condition of this site.

Fire and candle carry the main rooms of this hotel. The hall has a hearth that is laid in the cold season, and the dining tables are set with candles rather than bright fittings. Both are small sources, and the room is planned around how far they actually reach.

The light stays on the table linen, the glass and the faces at close range, then falls away into the panelling. The hearth adds a second, wider pool of light near the chimney. The river terrace is another matter, and takes only what leaks out through the windows.

The Dordogne below the château is not floodlit, and neither is the cliff the building stands on. Nothing is aimed at the front of the house from the garden. From the terrace the valley is a dark form under the sky, and is left that way.

An outdoor fire bowl by the water is the visible centre here. Behind it the cabins add their own windows, which sit low against the inlet. Together they make a small cluster of light on a shoreline that carries nothing else of the kind after dark.

The fire lights the dock boards, the seats around it and a short reach of moving water. The cabin windows put squares of light on the boardwalk and on the surface below. Everything past that edge, the inlet and the far shore alike, is left to the sky.

The Great Bear Rainforest around the resort is not lit and could not usefully be. No lamp is turned on the forest wall, and the water beyond the dock is dark within a few metres. The cluster of buildings is the only lit thing on the shore.