Cultural Museum St. Gallen

Historic illuminated in a new way

The renovation project consists of the modernization of the lecture hall, some offices and the arcade in the courtyard of the St. Gallen Museum of Culture. The goal of the project was to create an appropriate lighting arrangement for the spaces in terms of visual comfort and mood of the space, while preserving and enhancing the historic character of the spaces.

The lighting design for the lecture hall was also intended to improve flexibility as the space is used for a variety of events. For this reason, two levels of lighting were provided: The existing luminaire positions of the former rod pendant luminaires were replaced with tunable-white downlights integrated into the ceiling rose to illuminate the room. In addition, a circumferential indirect lighting level integrated into the wood paneling was added to brighten the ceiling to accentuate the magnificent stucco work. Thanks to predefined lighting scenes, the lighting can now be selected according to the different uses of the space.

A similar approach was implemented for the offices: Here, too, the basic lighting consisted of rod pendant luminaires, which were replaced by simple linear pendant luminaires equipped with a direct (3000K) and an indirect light component (4000K) that simultaneously highlights the room's decoration on the wall and ceiling and provides an appropriate light level on the work surface.

For the courtyard, a reinterpretation of the arcade lighting was created with typical historical pendant luminaires replacing the former halogen pin lamps. The new pendant luminaires blend well with the historic character of the outdoor space and create a soft and cozy lighting effect.