Modern architecture is all about the intersection of elegance and simplicity. Spaces have clearly defined and repeating shapes, bright jewel colors balanced by clear white, grey, or black, and natural textures and patterns complementing clean smooth lines. Lighting, involving color, intensity, placement, and fixture design has come to be a defining feature of this architectural development, and for anyone who wants to make progress lighting their modern space all of these details must come into carefully coordinated play.
Modern architecture is not necessarily modernist. It does not necessarily fixate on dramatic, unusual shapes while glass and steel create a colorlessly uncomfortable and stark environment. Instead modern architecture knows how to use the simple to its fullest advantage. For instance, many modern townhouses involve perfectly straight outside lines, sharp corners with rectangular windows of various shapes balancing themselves.
The effect is both striking and inviting, a simple space-efficient design that suggests intelligence, efficiency, but not necessarily the modernist otherworldness of the avant-garde. For a house such as this, outer lights would often be LEDs, shining pure white or blue tint instead of the older soft-yellow lights. This cleaner light would complement the design and would likely involve tall, rectangular fixtures placed up against the house itself, stylistically matching and balancing the rest of the house.
Many other situations exist. Modern light fixtures come in styles and materials designed to balance the rooms they are in with clean lines. Cylinders, squares, rectangles, even diamonds or flower models can be found to add a little touch to whatever space they are in. When well done the right light fixture can have a masterful effect on a space, inviting peace and serenity as well as looking absolutely fantastic for everyone who walks through.