The 850-year-old Duomo di Monreale in Monte Caputo, overlooking Palermo, Italy, is a national monument and UNESCO heritage site. Famous for its Norman architecture and extraordinary 6,340-square-meters of mosaics illustrating key scenes from the Bible, the Cathedrale unveiled new architectural lighting in early December.
The previous lighting used halogen and metal halide lamps that were expensive to maintain and run, and due to poor color rendering in blue and red tones distorted the yellow and gold of the mosaics. The new LED lighting solution brings back into focus the richness of the mosaic details and provides a more sustainable option.
Holger Leibmann, Complex Project Manager at Zumtobel, talked to Live Design about the project.
Live Design: What prompted the need for this lighting upgrade?
Holger Leibmann: Monreale Cathedral’s Romanesque structure, Arabic-style blind arches and intarsia on the outer walls, and the rich gold-ground mosaics in the building’s interior reflect the three cultural influences that make it so captivating. William II, the last Norman king of Sicily, is thought to have commissioned the ornate mosaics. In order to preserve them for posterity, they have been extensively renovated and re-tiled. The parish and cathedral congregation of Monreale used the restoration work as an opportunity to have a new state-of-the-art lighting solution installed. The existing lighting solution had immense energy and maintenance costs and large parts of it had therefore been turned off by default. The new lighting solution should cut back on costs as well as improve the light quality drastically.
LD: What was the scope of work on the Monreale Cathedrale for Zumtobel?
HL: Zumtobel was entrusted with the task of replacing the outdated lighting system in order to accentuate the visual richness of the mosaics. The aim was also to enhance the emotive, awe-inspiring atmosphere for all visitors to the UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as for religious ceremonies. The existing lighting in the cathedral was based on outdated 150-watt metal-halide lamps. These were incurring extremely high operating and maintenance and strongly exaggerated the yellow and gold tones due to their specific spectrum with low color rendering in the blue and red ranges. The objective of Zumtobel’s custom LED lighting solution is to provide wide-area lighting to illuminate the historic structures of the cathedral as discreetly and naturally as possible, while simultaneously creating the best possible atmosphere for a range of uses, such as a festively lit nave for High Mass at Easter or Christmas or perfectly illuminated art history tours.
LD: Is the lighting an upgrade to existing lighting positions or did you have to add additional mounts for fixtures?
HL: The mounting positions were reduced and simplified. No luminaires are mounted on vertical surfaces anymore. Follwowing the demands of public authorities and the steering committee we limited the mounting positions to the top of organs, column capitals, cornices and the windows at high level in the presbyterium. The luminaires are therefore mostly supported by gravity.
LD: What were the main challenges of the project?
HL: The list of requirements for cathedral lighting was drawn up by an advisory board consisting of representatives of the cathedral congregation, parish and governmental decision-makers, monument conservators and experts in art history and engineering. The strict requirements of a UNESCO World Heritage Site were considered, as well as any requirements mandated by monument conservation laws. One of the key requirements was to ensure all work carried out on the cathedral’s architecture was non-destructive and reversible, meaning that some installation positions for the luminaires were simply not available. Part of the solution hence involves a project-specific luminaire with rectangular spotlights mounted in the nave with a frame construction on the capitals of columns, accompanied by round spotlights modeled on the VIVO II family, for accent lighting on altars or crucifixes.
LD: Do you need to use special fixtures/light levels to protect old mosaics/artworks?
HL: Ceramic and gold mosaics are not specifically liable for damage by LED spectra. The lighting solution is carried out with lighting controls, however, which allows to limit the illuminance levels in day-to-day situations.
Gear
Only Zumtobel fixtures have been used in this project. Project luminaire Monreale, VIVO II spotlights and LITECOM lighting management system.
Crew List
- Professor Maria Concetta Di Natale, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo (IT)
- Ciro Lomonte, architect and historian
- Guido Santoro, architect