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600,000 - 700,000 visitors per year make Louisiana the most visited museum for modern and contemporary art in Scandinavia. The museum is internationally recognised for its exceptional exhibitions and dynamic cultural programme. When it came time to upgrade all the spotlights to LED, various manufacturers were invited, and a special room was set up for lighting tests. ERCO impressed with both the quality of the lighting and the design of the spotlights, a crucial aspect for the museum. Since then, the old spotlights have been gradually replaced by ERCO luminaires.
Over 400 Parscan ERCO spotlights now illuminate contemporary art in the Louisiana Museum. Logistics play a vital role with the high number of spotlights. The museum uses boxes of various sizes for storing the spotlights, as well as additional boxes for interchangeable lenses. “We take down the spotlights that the artist doesn’t want to use for the exhibition, so we have to store them somewhere,” says Peter Timmermann, head electrician at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
A conscious decision was made to use onboard dimming for control. With spotlights frequently moved between rooms or wings of the building, using systems like Casambi or DALI would require re-setting the networks each time. “So, we do it the classic way: I take a ladder or a lift and dim all the spots individually”, explains Timmermann.
“In their daily work, the staff benefits from the flexibility of the interchangeable lenses, allowing them to use extra wide floods as wallwashers or the wallwasher lens with a spotlight head. They can also rotate the wallwashers by 180 degrees to create special effects. I love that you can rotate the oval lens to direct the light cone onto an object”, Timmermann adds. Many lighting decisions are made in close collaboration with the artists.
By switching to LED throughout the museum and installing photovoltaic (PV) modules along with other measures, Louisiana has achieved significant energy savings, not only in lighting but also in air conditioning and maintenance. “In this way, the lights have practically paid for themselves”, says Timmermann.
Illuminating in the classic way: Timmermann opted for Parscan spotlights with onboard dimming, as they are frequently moved between different rooms or even parts of the building.
The LED Parscan spotlights are also used in the museum shop.
