090 PROJECT / AMGUEDDFA CYMRU - NATIONAL MUSEUM WALES, CARDIFF, WALES NATIONAL PRIDE
Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales has recently refurbished its contemporary art galleries, using the occasion to upgrade its lighting system to ERCO LED.
The Contemporary Art galleries at Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales are designed by Alwyn Jones Architects and Arup Cardiff to be highly flexible spaces that can be individually altered to provide the artist and museum with the perfect ambience for each exhibition.
The Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales in Cardiff is one of Wales’ finest neo-classical buildings situated in the heart of the capital’s elegant civic centre, and is listed Grade I. The building was officially opened in 1927, and has been substantially remodelled over subsequent years. Many components of the early building works were reaching the end of their useful lives, and consequently a major remodelling and refurbishment of the existing roof areas was undertaken by local architectural practice Alwyn Jones Architects. The opportunity was also taken to refurbish and redecorate the interior of the upper East wing galleries to provide suitable accommodation for one of Europe’s finest art collections. Following the success of this project, the practice was commissioned to re-develop the Upper West Wing of the museum to create a series of new flexible and contemporary art galleries for the display of the museum’s
collection of modern art. Alwyn Jones Architects and Arup Cardiff worked in close conjunction with the museum to deliver the most exciting of contemporary spaces. The refurbishment produced the chance to introduce an up to date, flexible and sustainable lighting system for the new Contemporary Art galleries. As these new galleries would host a huge variety of contemporary art, ranging from large scale sculptures and paintings to audio visual pieces and light sculptures, a system was required that gave the flexibility to be able to light each new exhibition individually. During the design briefings and lead up to the project, Charlie Upton, Lighting Technician for Amgueddfa Cymru and Lighting Designer for the project, along with other members of the museum’s Programming and Presentations, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and Buildings departments,
were brought in to discuss the various technical requirements. The design team worked closely with Arup to begin with and then, at a later stage, ERCO to ensure that the new lighting system would meet their requirements. Upson takes up the story: “I was asked to present to the design team a shortlist of possible lighting systems that would adhere to our lighting needs. Of those chosen, ERCO’s Light System DALI seemed to more than meet all of the requirements, further extending our lighting possibilities in the new galleries. The museum has worked with ERCO before and they have assisted in the design and installation of lighting systems in some of our other gallery and exhibition spaces.” The bulk of the lighting system, including the lightboxes and lighting control, was designed by Arup and ERCO leaving the choice of fixtures to the museum. The evenly balanced
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