Superlative art in former granaries, illuminated with ERCO LED lighting tools: Axel Vervoordt's Kanaal project

With the aid of several Belgian architectural practices they transformed and supplemented the industrial heritage site over a period of almost two decades to create a small green town that offers apartments, offices, studios, an auditorium, a restaurant and spaces for art. The historic warehouses and silos made of brickwork and concrete as well as a former chapel now serve as exhibition spaces. Artworks by renowned artists such as Anish Kapoor, James Turrell, Marina Abramović, Otto Boll and Tatsuo Miyajima can be viewed as permanent installations of the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation. Three rooms for temporary exhibitions were also created at the Axel Vervoordt Gallery.

A tour, free of charge for visitors, connects the galleries and exhibition rooms of the Kanaal area. The “Escher Gallery” with a clear room height of around ten metres, nested staircases and circular ceiling cut-outs where steel silos once stood impresses with highly unusual visual relationships.

From there, a walk across the complex leads past a central concrete building surrounded by water basins that accommodates Anish Kapoor's monumental work "At the Edge of the World". Behind this is a new building designed by Axel Vervoordt in close collaboration with the Japanese architect Tatsuro Miki. It was created with maximum consideration for mathematical principles and proportions and is shrouded in natural light. Here he presents works of art from the collection of the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation, including works by renowned Zero and Gutai artists.

Dark grey-toned walls create a contemplative atmosphere that promotes a more intense observation of the art. The very good glare control and precision of the Parscan spotlights installed enable this stimulating interplay of light and dark. ERCO LED lighting tools also demonstrate a high degree of flexibility and efficiency in the atmospherically completely contrary gallery rooms on the floor above used for temporary exhibitions: with a minimal number of luminaires, paintings and sculptures are illuminated with maximum impact and pinpoint precision.

A focus on art: effective lighting with Parscan and Pollux from ERCO

Exhibitions change four times a year in Vervoordt's "Escher Gallery", "Patio Gallery" and "Terrace Gallery" at the Kanaal. The spaces accommodate paintings and drawings, photography and media art as well as sculptures in various formats. Some exhibition concepts also require separation of the spaces with use of mobile partition walls. In such cases Axel Vervoordt's scenographer Chris Pype then adapts the ERCO LED lighting tools to the new spatial situation and the various exhibits.

The Spherolit lenses of the Parscan and Pollux spotlights can be exchanged without tools. The exhibition organisers are able to convert their luminaires from narrow beam spotlights to wide beam floodlights for example. Asymmetric light distributions such as oval flood and wallwash are also possible, enabling the light beam to be optimally matched to the works of art on display.

Projection of the light via lenses achieves high-lumen accents even with low wattages. With LED modules of 6 and 12 watts respectively, Pollux and Parscan feature compact luminaire dimensions. The spotlights have a highly discreet appearance in the atmospherically dark rooms of the converted industrial buildings, and the viewer's attention is focused solely on the light and the superlatively illuminated, high-calibre works of art.