The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery and Museum offers a fascinating insight into Dundee, Scotland, featuring eight galleries over two floors displaying exhibitions on the city’s art, history and environment.
With extensive experience lighting museums and galleries, LITE was approached by Dundee Council to deliver a lighting scheme for the building facade, sculptures and grounds of The McManus.
LITE Architectural successfully secured the tender and was appointed to design, supply, install, and commission the exterior lighting scheme for the project. LITE recommended a number of solutions from their market-leading portfolio to meet the design brief for the facade lighting, including RGBW luminaires with a tilt facility to illuminate the facade from fixed positions.
The project involved reusing the existing glass covers, apertures and cast metal plates from the existing fixtures to ensure minimal risk and protection against weather and potential vandalism. To update the solutions to DMX from static white an additional data cable was required which is cloud-controlled by a Pharos controller. A number of stone benches featured LED tape, which was upgraded to a bespoke LED strip lighting solution, delivering the perfect replacement.
As the Gothic Revival-style building is a Category A listed building, the challenge was to provide a lighting scheme that was sympathetic to the existing structure and architecture of the building. Therefore, the lighting was fitted using existing fix points and locations, with tiltable luminaires utilised to ensure the optimum beam angles.
By upgrading the lighting to wireless, dynamic solutions (DMX and Pharos controllers) it is now incredibly straightforward for the Council to remotely set the lighting scenes to various displays and colours. The council now has full control over the colour-changing settings, giving them the ability to create light shows in different colours for awareness days and holidays.
David Robertson of LITE Architectural said, “The full turnkey service and lighting solutions have transformed the exterior and grounds of The McManus. The museum and gallery showcase the most important pieces of the city’s history and culture, and we wanted the building to reflect this. The grounds are now beautifully lit during the evenings to create a welcoming experience for visitors.”
