PARIS, France — The world-renowned flagship exhibit of Paris’ National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), The Grand Gallery of Evolution, celebrated its 20-year anniversary by updating its lighting system that was originally implemented in 1994. The Gallery’s centerpiece, which recreates the natural environment of the African Savanna with a caravan of animals, uses a sound and light show to recreate day/night cycles of the Savanna. With outdated technology, high power consumption and the show playing twice a day for the past 15 years, the old system was in desperate need of an upgrade. To help revitalize the visitor experience, the MNHN brought in HARMAN’s Martin Professional and over 200 Martin Tripix fixtures were installed throughout the gallery.
The MNHN wanted the lighting and sound to help create a sense of movement to the animals and Martin then developed a solution for the three main areas of the gallery: the side wall windows, the sky and the skylight windows along the edge of the sky. Extensive onsite testing was used to overcome the technical challenges of lighting both the sky and the surrounding skylight windows and a system consisting of Martin’s Tripix and Exterior 400 fixtures was put together. The lighting design featured Martin’s Tripix 1200 LED strips that provide a “full-color” LED mix with ideal color mixing options and the possibility to achieve uniformity with the use of optical diffusers. The powerful fixtures deliver 1,440 lumens on 82 W for up to four feet
The resulting lightshow recreates a typical day on the African Savanna from dawn to dusk with a short built-in storm sequences that concludes with a rainbow. “We pushed the colors and pushed the technology to get vivid oranges and fluorescent pinks, because in real life a sunset is fluorescent pink,” said Claude Anne Gauthier, Director of the Galleries Departments, MNHN.
The sky is composed of 9 sections of 4 reflective panels, indirectly lighting up a total of 432 panels of frosted glass. Each section is cross-lit with four Exterior 410s. For the skylights, the short distance between the mounting possibilities and the reflective panels required a very wide beam. The Tripix wash was chosen to light this area for its range of optical diffusers that provides the right beam angle while also bringing the same richness in color as the wall installation. In addition, the windows were lit with a linear color changer to allow the wall to play an active role in the show,
Speaking on the success of the new lighting design, Gauthier said, “We now know that the show works really well with the visitors, and we have a feeling that, at least for the majority, they feel that something is happening because of the sound and the lighting that was installed.”
Martin Equipment
Tripix 1200,147 pcs.
Tripix Wash, 56 pcs.
Exterior 410, 36 pcs.
M-PC, 1 pcs.
M1, 1 pcs.
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As a world leader in the creation of dynamic lighting solutions for the entertainment, architectural, and commercial sectors, Martin lighting and video systems are renowned the world over. Martin also offers a range of advanced lighting controllers and media servers, as well as a complete line of smoke machines as a complement to intelligent lighting. Martin operates the industry’s most complete and capable distributor network with local partners in nearly 100 countries. Founded in 1987 and based in Aarhus, Denmark, Martin is the lighting division of global infotainment and audio company HARMAN International Industries. For more information please visit: http://www.martin.com
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets premier audio, visual, infotainment and enterprise automation solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson ® and Revel®, the Company is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 17,600 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.9 billion during the last 12 months ended December 31, 2014.