news
- 05.01.2006
- / realizations
MUSAION
Introduction
After a long and demanding reconstruction, a new exposition of ethnical department of Historical Museum was inaugurated the 29th of September 2005 in Letohrádek Kinských in Prague.
It is the second, after The Czech Museum of Music, newly reconstructed object with the exhibiting space of National Museum. The ethnical department belongs to one of the most ethnically and collection-wise extensive wholes of the Historical Museum. Its funds involve more than 200 000 collection objects.
As it happens with many other reconstructions of historical objects for exhibition purposes, it was not managed to prepare a project of complete reconstruction in case of Letohrádek Kinských. The object was therefore split into two separate wholes: project of reconstruction of the building and project of exposition. Such an approach is not quite suitable, especially in case of exhibitory spaces. The main reason is the technical equipment that these spaces contain. If the final shape of exposition is not known, lay-out of technical and technological items that has to be finished in the first phase is usually unsuitable for the subsequent phase. This fact influenced the form and lay-out of the exposition, the design of lighting and the subsequent adjustments of distribution. The exposition is located on the first floor in 11 rooms of total area of 500 square meters. The content of individual rooms is focused thematically and the themes deal with various activities, events or time periods (spring, summer, Easter, arts and crafts etc.). The major part of exhibits is installed in show-cases. Open-space installation is used only to a small extent. Regarding this lay-out of the exposition, lighting was divided into two parts: interior and exterior system of exposition lighting.
The interior system of exposition lighting
The interior lighting installed in show-cases provides enough lighting of exhibited objects and at the same time it respects their sensitivity to radiation of light. This way of lighting makes it possible to illumine the exhibits without there being any disturbing shades that might come from projection, during lighting from the outside, of the structure parts of show-cases and their edges on the exhibits. The interior exposition lighting creates a system of optical cables with glass fibre.
There are 33 exhibited floor show-cases, 5 wall show-cases and 3 dioramas – large show-cases 4 x 4 meters in size. The projectors of optical cables are situated on the ceilings of show-cases. Location of projectors and choice of glass fibres made it possible to use projectors without ventilators. In this way, any possible problem with noise, which emerges when more projectors with ventilators are used, disappears. Optical cables are installed in show-cases in horizontal and vertical aluminium guide profiles that enable the fixation and direction of outfalls of optical cable. Optical lenses which enable to narrow the radiation angle from the original 60° up to 15° are used for alterations of radiation angles. One to three projectors with output 50 W are used for lighting of floor show-cases. These projectors are supplied with projection halogen bulbs with exactly defined radiation angle. For the lighting of dioramas, regarding the size of the show-cases, projectors for 150 W metal-halide lamps are used.
An atypical application of optical cables is the creation of a starry sky above Bethlehem. 150 separate optical fibres attached to the projector with a 20 W reflector halogen bulb are inserted into the area of firmament. 40 projectors for 50 W halogen bulbs, 5 projectors for 150 W metal-halide lamps and one projector for 20 W halogen bulbs are used within the frame of the interior system of exposition lighting. Total input of the set is 3,1 Kw.
The exterior system of exposition lighting
The second part of lighting is the exterior system of exposition lighting that serves for the illuminating of freely installed exhibits, wall textile wallpapers, legends, accompanying texts and for extra lighting of the space and exhibits in the lower parts of the show-cases. The base of exterior system of lighting is the rail system hanging in the height of 4 meters where 2 types of lighting fittings are used. For directional lighting, Le Perroquet lighting fittings, which can be continuously dimmed and which are furnished with 50 W halogen bulbs with diachronic reflector and radiation angles 10°, 24°, 38° and 60°, are employed. For area lighting, Parallel lighting fittings for 150 W linear halogen bulbs were used. Both types of lighting fittings are furnished with a dimmable shield for limitation of any possible glare. The system of exterior lighting consists of 105 lighting fittings Le Perroquet, 5 lighting fittings Parallel and 4 lighting fittings Cestello 6x50 W. Total installed input of this set is 7,8 kW.
Conclusion
One of the major issues, especially for scenically conceived expositions, is the question of maintenance. During maintenance of any lighting fitting, its repair or exchange of the source of light, we have to solve the problem where and how to direct the lighting fitting so that the originally designed scenic character of exposition is saved. It is necessary to have information about every lighting fitting in the exposition, about the type of lighting fitting and the source of light, about the location and direction of lighting fitting and about the preset intensity of lighting. Having gained experience with lighting of a number of exhibition spaces, we managed to finish the previously conceived „Manual of Exposition Lighting“. This manual, intended for users and service organization, contains drawings of exposition and exact information about the location and direction of lighting fittings, their types and sources of light. One component of the manual is the plan of maintenance and recommended date of group exchanges of lighting fittings together with principles of preventive maintenance. The manual about lighting not only facilitates the orientation in lighting sets, but also establishes rules for their maintenance, simplifies and makes more effective the overall operation of exposition lighting.
Author and commissioner of the exposition: PhDr. Jiřina Langhammerová
Architect of the exposition: arch. Jan Polášek
Lighting design: arch. Jan Polášek, Hakan Langsted, Petr Žák
Lighting fittings: iGuzzini, Etna
Optical cables: SAAS, Artlite
Show-cases: Revyko, František Záhrobský
Exposition supplements: LND, Luděk Novotný
Production: GJ Architects, Ing. Jiří Gregor
