FERNANDJACOPOZZI
Fernand Jacopozzi — The Magician of Light
Italian-French engineer and illuminator (1877–1932), Fernand Jacopozzi made Paris the City of Light through four great works.
Act I — A Florentine arrives (1900): At twenty-three, Fernando arrives in a Paris transformed by the World's Fair. At the Palace of Electricity, fountains change colour. He decides to dedicate his life to illumination.
Act II — The Fake Paris (1917–1918): Tasked by Clemenceau to protect Paris from German bombers, Jacopozzi secretly built a luminous replica of the capital twenty kilometres to the north-east.
Act III — The Eiffel Tower for Citroën (1925): Two hundred and fifty thousand bulbs transform the Eiffel Tower into a giant billboard for Citroën — visible forty kilometres away.
Act IV — The Magasins du Louvre (1919–1931): Seven years of reign over the Christmas illuminations of the Parisian grands magasins.
Appointed Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur on 22 January 1932, Fernand Jacopozzi died two weeks later. He rests at Père-Lachaise, division 86.
"The Eiffel Tower had put on its finest evening gown."
— Marie Laurencin, 1925
A Florentine
Arrives
Paris, 1900
At twenty-three, Fernando arrives in a capital transformed by the World's Fair. At the Palace of Electricity, fountains change colour. For him, it will be a revelation.
But expatriate life closes its doors, and Paris sinks back into darkness. The eldest of seven children from a comfortable Florentine bourgeois family — gone to try his luck in France — he makes a decision: he will learn electricity. He will become the man who gives the Parisian night back what it had lost.
World's Fair
- 1877
- Born · Florence
- 7
- Eldest of seven children
- 1900
- Arrived in Paris
Le Faux Paris
— classified, 1917–1918
When German bombers began streaking across the Parisian sky, Clemenceau called on the magician of lights. His mission: become master of shadows and, in secret, the mime of Paris.
Twenty kilometres to the north-east, on a bend of the Seine identical to the one that crosses the capital, Jacopozzi built a nocturnal replica: a fake Gare de l'Est between Sevran and Villepinte, false factories, false Champs-Élysées. Wooden buildings covered in translucent painted canvas. White, yellow and red lamps alternately lighting artificial vapour — like the furnaces of real workshops.
His masterpiece: a train in motion. Across eighteen hundred metres, hundreds of bulbs lit one after another, sending a progressive light running with uncanny precision. Seen from above, the illusion was perfect.
The device was ready after the last German raid. It was never tested. It was later learned that the Germans had been planning the same strategy.
E · 02°31'04"
≈ 20 km N-E of Paris
The Iron Lady
— International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, 1925
For the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, Gabriel Thomas, administrator of the Société de la Tour Eiffel, wanted to animate the Iron Lady with an unprecedented light show. He called on Fernand Jacopozzi.
To win them over, Jacopozzi builds a scale model in wood and mica. He approaches the great industrialists one by one. Peugeot declines. The Magasins du Louvre decline. Louis Renault declines. André Citroën, however, receives the engineer in person, captivated by the audacity of the project: he gives his agreement — and will retain direct control of everything touching the Tower until his death.
On 23 May 1925, work begins. A three-hundred-metre cable trough links the base of the Tower to a transformer set at the foot of the south pillar. Thirty-two cables — fifteen tonnes — run 250 metres to the distribution cabin on the second floor.
Jacopozzi's usual crew refuses to climb. He recruits navy topmen and circus acrobats who, suspended in the void, set 250,000 bulbs in six colours along kilometres of wire. On 4 July, at four in the morning, from a riverboat, he gives the signal: for the first time, the Tower lights up over Paris.
Ten animations follow one another every forty seconds: a starry gown, zodiac signs, flames — and those famous comets that shoot from top to bottom to spell the name CITROËN. The Tower shines forty kilometres in every direction. Two years later, Charles Lindbergh will recount having seen the Tower's glow from far out at sea.
· 57 km of wire ·
- 250,000
- Bulbs in six colours
- 57 km
- Of wire strung in the void
- 40 km
- Radius of nocturnal visibility
The Years
of Light
— 1925 — 1932
Seven years of reign. Every winter, the Parisian grands magasins waged a battle of light for the delight of the crowd — and Jacopozzi was the undisputed arbiter.
It began in 1919, barely after peace returned. The Grands Magasins du Louvre, on the Place du Palais-Royal, commissioned the first civilian illuminations of the post-war era. The store's façade became his laboratory: animated displays ten metres high, with motifs so striking the store sold them off individually once the holiday was over. For thirteen consecutive winters, until his death, they were his most faithful client.
Its stork of four thousand six hundred bulbs spread its wings above a miniature village, distributed toys, then receded into artificial snow. Emulation spread. At the BHV, a clown juggled. At the Samaritaine, Father Christmas. All Paris came to look.
"He created those Christmas illuminations so that even poor children could enjoy a magical spectacle."
Tour after tour. Notre-Dame bathed in June 1930 in the indirect light of five hundred projectors — a technique he invented that the entire world would copy. The temple of Angkor recreated for the Colonial Exhibition of 1931. Rouen Cathedral for the fifth centenary of Joan of Arc. His workshops exported to England, Belgium, and Spain.
"I am a decorator and I love light. With it, I wish to create an atmosphere of joy and beauty."