Museum Island – Sub-Project Colonnades Courtyard

Berlin, Germany

Photo © Claas Dreppenstedt

Lighting Designers: CONCEPTLICHT

Location: Berlin, Germany
Year: 2010
Client: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz
User: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Planning: Architekten Petersen | Levin Monsigny Landschaftsarchiten
Team CONCEPTLICHT: Helmut Angerer, Eva Lechermann

Being an UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Museum Island in central Berlin consists of several museums (amongst others the Old National Gallery and the New Museum), vegetal open space and a courtyard encompassed by colonnades.

The colonnades connecting the Old National Gallery with the New Museum are illuminated by luminaires with a warm colour temperature. This way, their autonomy is pointed out and they can set themselves apart from the buildings in their background, which appear in a cooler colour temperature resembling moonlight. A good to excellent colour rendering quality preserves the natural appearance of the stone façades. To some extent, we as lighting designers developed the luminaires specifically for this site, designing and constructing them in a way that their beam angles are in accordance with the architecture’s geometry. The light-shadow-borders of the building illumination ranges from the top edge of the building’ socket up to the eaves. Vertically, they are limited by building corners and protruding façade elements. This way, light illuminates exclusively those areas that shall be highlighted. Light pollution and stray light into the nearby urban area are prevented.

Also the column luminaires are custom-made. The indirect light part is geared to the ceiling geometry, the direct part is determined by the distance between the base lines of the two column rows. This way, the columns do not receive disturbing light cones but can be perceived as complete elements, softly lit by the reflections from the floor. Otherwise, if illuminated by standard luminaires, the columns would be visually separated into three parts: two very bright end pieces and a darker central part.