124 TECHNOLOGY / CASE STUDY
REMAKING THE CASTLE
The ruins of Castle Valkenburg in the Netherlands sit upon a rare promontory making them visible from miles around. Now Pulsar has put into practice a new lighting design returning life to an ancient structure.
Being the only elevated castle in the Netherlands, Castle Valkenburg, which can trace its history back as far as the 11th and 12th century, offers a one-off vista in a famously sea-level nation. The castle was built and re-built many times during its long and bloody history and was finally reduced to rubble in the 17th century by Dutch commanders desperate to avoid it falling into the hands of Louis XIV and the invading French. Its history didn’t stop there, years later it was captured by Napoleon and during the Second World War local residents used the castle’s tunnels as a safe haven from fighting. Today the ruined castle looks over the modern city of Valkenburg aan de Geul and can be seen for miles around, the ruins standing as a surviving link to the nation’s long history. Now, with this history in mind, a new lighting design has attempted to piece the castle back together
through illumination.
The new lighting and projection display named ‘A City as a Host’ was designed by Studio DL and has allowed the fortress to take on a new life, its unique identity now emphasised by the dramatic and informative display.
The design features are comprised of carefully arranged Pulsar LED fixtures which highlight and build upon the dramatic and evocative shadows and silhouettes the castle is mostly comprised of at night. The project required a variety of IP66 ChromaRange fixtures each with a custom LED configuration of white-amber-blue, as well as a number of different flood lights, including eight ChromaFlood 400s, five ChromaFlood 200s, nine ChromaInGround 50s, and five ChromaStrip X3s. These have been connected to a combination of five ChromaZone 12-200IPs for full and smooth
control of all the LED lighting levels and a DataSplitter DS5 for DMX distribution. The lighting was carefully checked to ensure that it delivered complete colour consistency, a consideration necessary because of the mixed and matched nature of the lighting used. So, for example, floods, ingrounds, and linear strips of differing lengths were all used in the lighting design because it had been confirmed that they would all have the same colour output.
The design effects include built in programs which range from static and slowly cross- fading colours to faster chases, pulses and dynamic lighting scenes that all contribute to a larger sequence while supporting video content that relates the castle’s eventful story.
www.pulsarlight.com
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