Outstanding glass craftsmanship in historic architecture, perfectly displayed with customised ERCO lighting

A tailor-made special solution: Parscan spotlights on steel posts

The industrial architecture with raw walls, dust-covered furnaces and openly visible supporting structure below saw-tooth roofs was, as far as possible, not to be modified in the course of the conversion to a cultural centre – in the truest sense of the word. For this reason, and as part of the ERCO individual service, a special version of the Parscan spotlight with a short mounting bracket was developed. This luminaire was mounted for example in the glass workshop and in the large exhibition hall on steel posts of different heights, with ERCO track installed vertically within the posts.

The shortened mounting bracket is based on an aesthetic decision – the luminaires are thus closer to the post. The custom-made “light poles” of different heights are positioned wherever light is needed to guide visitors, to stage the architecture and display the exhibits. This made it possible to largely dispense with track below the historic roof structure. Only in the glass workshop, where museum visitors get a real-time insight into the traditional craft, do additional high-output track-mounted Parscan floodlights provide optimal light for the melting furnace workplaces.

Coloured light breathes life into the industrial architecture and glass artworks

A black box was integrated into the former glassworks as a room-within-a-room structure completely without the incidence of daylight, in which changing exhibitions of fragile works of art made of glass or ceramics can be seen. To be able to align the lighting as flexibly as possible to the respective exhibits, a dense track system with spacing of only one metre was installed beneath the newly installed ceiling. The custom Parscan spotlight variant with short mounting bracket was used here as well.

Stella spotlights modified with RBGW LED are a further essential special solution: the lighting designer responsible for the lighting concept of the new cultural centre, Iben Winther Orton from Lightscapes ApS, wanted a high-output RGBW luminaire also controllable via Casambi Bluetooth. The Stella spotlights developed as part of the ERCO individual service can be adapted across the entire colour spectrum to the specific materials and colour scheme of the exhibits.

“In the Holmegaard Værk lighting design, the colour composition depends on the individual exhibitions, whereby contrasting or complementary colours are used to highlight the colour of the works themselves,” explains the lighting designer. “To breathe a sense life into glass and ceramics it has to be remembered that the amount of light these materials can absorb is individual. If the lighting reaches this point, the object appears brilliant and attractive, if it is below it the material stays lifeless, and if the lighting exceeds this point the material is perceived as flat.” Not only the exhibits themselves, but also the surroundings – such as floor areas and steps – were designed by the lighting designer with partly subtle, partly dramatic contrasts via the use of coloured light.

Highly diverse spatial situations with varying amounts of daylight

Some areas in the exhibition are bathed in cool ‘glass green’, others in warm amber. This is also the case in the room with a gigantic shelf, some seven metres in height, housing more than 40,000 glass objects. Parscan spotlights and Stella spotlights converted to RBGW provide powerful, efficient and precise accent lighting. Adjustment to changing daylight situations is via Casambi Bluetooth. “The powerful, heterogeneous lighting concept with strong, partly coloured light accents underlines the diverse spatial and daylight situations, but also the different functions of the areas in the former glassworks,” states lighting designer Iben Winther Orton. “The most homogeneous, uniform illumination possible with use of wallwashers, as aimed for by many museums today, would not have done justice to the complexity of Holmegaard Værk.”