Relighting of the German Museum of Technology, Berlin

With around 600,000 visitors annually, the German Museum of Technology in Berlin is a genuine crowd-puller in the German capital city’s multifaceted museum landscape. With both permanent and special exhibitions, and space of around 26,000 m², the museum exhibits a wide spectrum of themes, ranging from aviation and shipping to rail, road traffic and far beyond.

The relighting of the museum was primarily motivated by the desire to achieve an improved energy balance. Awarding the contract to ERCO after a tender procedure was based on consumption analysis and sampling. Energy efficiency, light output, durability and reliability were all contributing factors.

The museum relighting was technically supervised by lighting designer Karsten Krause and gained favourable reactions both internally and from the public. The savings are impressive: by converting to LED technology, the museum is able to save annual energy costs of €125,000, which corresponds to a reduction of CO₂ emission of 395 tonnes.

Museum Deputy Director Professor Josephe Hoppe sees a further aspect as being just as important — the quantum leap in quality with the museum lighting.

“The new light allows both us and the public to discover things we never saw before,” Hoppe said.

He praised the ERCO Spherolit lenses and the corresponding variability and flexibility of the luminaires. The easily exchanged lenses mean that the museum team can also fine-tune and readjust the light at a later date.

No two rooms are alike in the German Museum of Technology, in relation to the architecture and daylight situation or regarding the items on display and the exhibition design. The art objects themselves differ enormously in terms of size, materials and surfaces, with some suspended in the space and others displayed in cabinets. Despite the diverse lighting requirements, only three ERCO luminaire families with power consumption of between 4 and 48 W are needed for the lighting tasks: Optec, Parscan and Pollux.

Optec spotlights with 12 and 24 wattages and narrow spot, spot, flood, wide flood and oval flood light distributions provide the high-performance basis of the museum lighting. Parscan with 48 W are used in high rooms where light needs to be projected over long distances, while Pollux contour spotlights emit precise light onto pictures, information signs and text panels.

With its relighting, the German Museum of Technology in Berlin sets standards for contemporary museum lighting that will remain in use for many years.

Image ©ERCO. Photo: Dirk Vogel