Martin Exterior 200 LED Debuts at Thtre National de Bretagne

Friday, March 7, 2008 || Martin Professional

Architect (renovation): Antoine Stinco

Lighting Design: Jean-Franois Touchard

Thtre National de Bretagne is renowned throughout France for its varied and bold presentations. Home to the European Centre of Theatre and Dance Production, the theatre recently received a thorough renovation consummated in December by a dynamic lighting scheme for the theatres facade.

The city of Rennes in Brittany sought to animate the front of the building in order to announce the various activities going on inside the theatre. Lighting designer for the exterior illumination was Jean-Franois Touchard who, with his design team, worked directly with the city on the concepts details.

Five-phase lighting scheme

Jean-Franois proposed an 8 hour per day lighting program, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., in five phases: evening, theatre and cinema opening, beginning of play, during play, and, afterwards, when only the bar and restaurant is open.

In the beginning, we wanted to light the building from the ground up, but the architect added an element that changed that plan, Jean-Franois comments. We then had to find a product that could achieve the same effect from the top and also be small enough that it didnt change the read of the building. It also needed to be as precise as possible in order to avoid lighting up the sidewalk.

Exterior 200 LED

Thanks to its colors and aesthetic appeal, Martin Professionals new Exterior 200 LED was the perfect product and could be placed between the glass and the metallic structure of the building, says Jean-Franois. Because the Exterior 200 LED is stylishly slim, it can be tucked discreetly into architectural design details and requires minimal service and maintenance. Its very well integrated because of its design, he says.

Martins Exterior 200 LED is a long-life programmable luminaire with full RGB + Amber and White color mixing. It features a comprehensive color range from 44 high power LEDs and choice of optional spread angles. Housed in a beautifully designed weatherproof casing, it is ideal for applications where projection distance is limited.

The colors needed for the program were easy to create, especially the orange. Moreover, the Exterior 200 LED was the only one of all the products tested to project only vertical lines. All the other products also lit up horizontally with a prism effect. The power and the uniformity of the Exterior 200 LEDs beam made the difference, Jean-Franois states.

The luminaires, provided and installed by local company Spectaculaire, are located inside the building at the top of the faade and directed inward to light up the metallic structure. Lighting programming was done on Martins PC-based LightJockey system and the lighting scheme is controlled via a DMX playback controller.

Jean-Franois concludes with a nod to Martin France, I would like to thank Martin for their support and quick response, he says.