056
PROJECT / RIJKSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM , THE NETHERLANDS
At the far end of the Gallery of Honour, Rembrandt’s world famous ‘The Night Watch’ forms the vantage point of this space. The ceilings have been meticulously restored to their original splendour.
Photo: Roos Aldershoff
conversations with Tim Zeedijk. This is perhaps the key feature of the lighting: I wanted the illumination of the paintings and other artifacts to convey to the visitor a strong feeling that you are looking at ‘the real thing’. Just like how the Antonios have accomplished to ‘Return the building to Cuypers’, I wanted to achieve lighting that ‘returns the painting back to itself’. It is very much in line with what Tim Zeedijk told me; he always explained that the Rijksmuseum is about the purity and simplicity of what’s on display; it’s all about the very-self of the artefact.
What were the design consequences of this vision?
In 2011 I finally understood this concept so well and so deeply, that it became clear to me, that only LED lighting could accomplish this. One of the main reasons is that when you dim LED lighting, its colour remains constant. I realised that this would be a critical feature: with all the artifacts having different dimensions, I would be able to dim each light individually, still maintaining a strong cohesion across each gallery and possibly all over the museum. That way, through the profound collaboration with the museum staff, with my team at Philips and with Wilmotte, I got to understand what the lighting of the Rijksmuseum was going to be. I was going to propose an all-LED
lighting design.
And that was not for reasons of operation or energy savings, but entirely to fullfil the most important artistic ambition: to make viewing the art in the Rijksmuseum a deliberate experience of viewing ‘the Real’.
How could you convince all parties involved to switch to LED? The thinking up to then was indeed to use tungsten halogen spotlights. On 22 February 2011, we all viewed a mockup of one gallery space. The lighting was with halogen, and immediately after, riding my bicycle through Amsterdam, my head got so full of ideas and thoughts that the same night I wrote the Head Director of the Rijksmuseum Mr. Wim Pijbes a letter. I wrote to him: “Dear Wim, After we have seen the mockup today, I think we can do much better. Together, we can create the best museum lighting one can imagine. We deliver product design and technological expertise, and your museum adds to that the knowledge of collections, presentation, and conservation. Moreover, you provide the most important: the museum itself, as an environment to implement our collaborative innovation.
But I have many questions for you before we can start. The most important are: 1) do you want to form a joint team, and 2)
would you entertain a solution based on just one single fitting for all exhibit lighting across all galleries?
What I have in mind, is one single light fitting that is so flexible, that you will be using it across the entire museum; any space, any ceiling height, any artifact.” Wim responded positively, and we formed a team, both bringing together our very best people. We started to explore the possibilities of LED, and were so lucky that Lumileds, the LED research and manufacturing facility of Philips in the USA, was developing a new LED with superb colour rendition at a colour temperature just above 3,000 Kelvin. We worked in a small group, developing the solution until it was worth showing to others. And in October 2011, after six months of development, we could show the world famous ‘The Night Watch’ painting by Rembrandt, lit entirely by LED.
How did the public react? It was a phenomenal experience. There was a real suspense in the gallery just before the light turned on... It’s such an important painting! The museum had done a fantastic job getting everyone excited; the most important journalists and experts were all there to see how the new LED lighting on that one painting was unveiled. It is a big painting though, and the audience
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150