LiTraCont - a Hungarian invention by Áron Losonczi
Many designers have long been considering ways to make cold and heavy concrete walls a little more friendly-looking. Many architects around the world have been searching for a solution, but it was a young Hungarian who came up with the revolutionary invention while still in architectural student. In 2004, Áron Losonczi invented Light Transmitting Concrete.
The basic idea of Light Transmitting Concrete, abbreviated LiTraCon, is quite simple: thousands of optical glass fibres have been added to concrete, layer by layer. As a result, the optical fibres – thin and not too numerous in relation to the amount of concrete – transmit light within the concrete from point to point. This happens regardless of how thick the concrete is: test results show that the transmission capacity of concrete remains unchanged, regardless of whether it is twenty centimetres thick or twenty meters. It is also peculiar that standing on one side of the LiTraCon wall, one can identify the colour of the light coming from the other side. Shadows of objects or trees cast on the opposite side of the wall appear perfectly on the reverse side. This experience is so stunning – one would never believe that it really is a concrete wall made of pebbles, sand, cement and water.
Although this brilliant invention has long been waited for, Light Transmitting Concrete is not likely to become an everyday component of family homes in the near future. Production is rather expensive and negotiations about large-scale industrial production of LiTraCon are still underway. So far, LiTraCon inventor Áron Losonczi has produced only a small amount of it in Csongrád in southern Hungary, though he has received numerous offers from the United States and Japan for the production licence. Another Hungarian architect has already incorporated some LiTraCon in a family home. Anyone, however, can marvel at this special material in Komárom in northeast Hungary, where a public sculpture called the “Gate to Europe” was built from Losonczi’s world-patented fibre glass concrete in 2005.
The new invention can also be seen in Washington’s National Museum of Architecture, where a sample of the LiTraCon produced in Csongrád is on display. However, it was an article in Time Magazine calling LiTraCon the most significant invention of 2004 which brought fame to its inventor. The new building material has attracted massive interest from architects and artists worldwide, who see infinite potential in transparent stone. For the time being, we can only guess at the future uses of LiTraCon. What we know for sure, however, is that the Japanese company Sumita Optical Glass is the first company in the world to manufacture LiTraCon, beginning this year.
Áron Losonczi has made history by challenging the formerly unarguable belief that light cannot penetrate concrete!
