Start to the Year 2018 with New Innovations
Start to the Year 2018 with New Innovations
Illumination of the Braunfels Castle Family Museum
Since the 13th century the castle has been the residence of the Counts of Solms. Today it is home to a unique family museum. Here, interested visitors can discover personal collectors’ items:theprivate collection of the Counts,Princesand Princesses of Solms containing jewellery, seals and coins, gowns and uniforms, cut and thrust weapons, duel pistols, hunting rifles, ceremonial we apons and much more.
Through its close collaboration with leading lighting designers, Cave Lighting has been able to develop lights specifically for use in museums, with the focus being on functionality and aesthetics. After performing lighting tests and compiling the possibilities of future light installations, also taking into account the individual wishes on part of our customer, the Count of Oppersdorff of Solms-Braunfels [Herr Graf von Oppersdorff zu Solms-Braunfels], the Cave Lighting team and Project Manager Oliver Heil made it a goal to present the family treasures and exhibits in the proper light. As the cabinets in almost every exhibition room are double-glazed, it was a particular challenge for Cave Lighting to find suitable places of installation for the lamps and to properly showcase the exhibition objects. The high light reflection occurring almost everywhereturned out to be a main problem of finding solutions.To prevent glare and light reflections, linear lighting was installed as were lights with special beam angles illuminating the exhibit from above to aid in the perception of shapes and color contrast. Only thus was it possible to present the museum in a new light and to decisively improve the lighting quality. As the museum is a touristic USP (unique selling proposition), the project received a grant from the regional development fund (LEADER).
Exterior Lights for Herborn Castle
Another successful project by Cave Lighting has been the exterior lighting of the Herborn Castle. Today the castle,dating back to the 12th century, is home to the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, which is a direct successor institution of the Herborn Academy. Cave Lighting had set itself the goalof solving several illumination problems at once, letting the medieval monument gleaming in new splendor.
The old exterior lighting was far too strong and the seminar participants felt blinded within the rooms. It also caused high energy costs with the result that the castle could not remain illuminated in the evenings for a long erperiod of time. Moreover, the old lighting system was prone to errors and no longer corresponded to the state of the art.
The part of the castle façade which faces the town of Herborn has been redesigned by Cave Lighting, under the direction of Project Manager Leonid Batiuzhenko. All wall and tower surfaces are divided into four zones. After performing lighting tests and taking into account customer requirements, the company decided to use neutral white and cool white lamps in order to bring out the structure of the castle. The lamps have been installed on the floorin front of the facade and the light is directed past the windows of the seminar rooms so as not to blind the visitors’ eyes. The castle towers are high light ed by focused, cool white light. As Cave Lighting lamps offer innumerable configuration possibilities, there are hardly any limits to theirrange of applications. This is one of the reasons why the modular LQP series ranks among the most successful products developed and put on the market by Cave Lighting CL.
Written by Anna Toplak (Marketing / Sales) and Oliver Heil (Project Manager)
