The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge, Canterbury’s central museum, library and art gallery, has recently undergone a £14 million restoration project, which included the installation of GE Lighting’s products in an LED upgrade.
Chosen for its advanced flexibility and efficiency, GE Lighting’s Infusion Generation 3 LED module was installed throughout the Grade II listed building, offering significant annual energy savings and reduced maintenance costs.
The modules are capable of being individually adjusted, offering a range of beams that can be sensitively dimmed for multiple purposes, ideal for the changeable atmosphere of the state-of-the-art gallery that hosts regular new exhibitions.
The unique function of the building required a versatile lighting solution that could adapt and enhance a variety of spaces. Mounted into DAL’s (Designed Architectural Lighting) Baltic Spotlight, all of the fixtures are fully demountable with interchangeable parts to suit a regular adjustment process.
Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz, Museums and Galleries Development Manager for Canterbury Museums and Galleries commented: “The new lighting in the Beaney has proved very successful as visitors have commented on how the lighting is clean and clear – without being too cold or too warm. The light colour had to be one that would not distort the colour and appearance of the oil paintings and GE Lighting’s module provided the ideal solution.
The nature of the project meant that lighting was considered a major facet, needing not only to simulate daylight and illuminate works of art but also to deliver excellent energy efficiency and minimal maintenance requirements for the high ceiling fixtures. The GE Infusion Generation 3 LED module is a revolutionary platform, designed to open up new possibilities for the use of long-lasting, low maintenance LED technology in retail, gallery and other environments where the quality of light is critical to the customer/visitor experience.
Krystyna continued: “We are still experimenting with the lighting for changing exhibitions but are now able to achieve good results and adapt the lighting to each exhibit if necessary. This is important to us as we often show art works that need different lux levels in the same space.
"The old fittings created unacceptable pools of light making even, uniform lighting impossible, but we are now able to create what appears to be even lighting, which is in fact dimmed differently.”