The articles here have been written by members of the design team. Some have been published in various journals, others form the core to talks and lectures given over the last several years. Please fell free to refer to these and use them giving credit to the authors and KSLD. We are also glad to hear any opinions and commentary you may have on the content. ... click on a headline to view article
Lighting for Museums and Art Galleries has a unique set of priorities, those of conservation and effective display. In many ways these two requirements conflict as there is a necessity to restrain lighting levels to promote the former whilst the latter requires sufficient light of a high quality to provide optimum viewing conditions. The process of lighting design becomes something of a balancing act to provide an effective ...
Our approach to lighting museums is one of embracing light and moulding it to meet the apparently conflicting requirements inherent in the museum environment. Light is on one hand a destructive force and thus conflicts with the museums role in preserving our heritage on the other it is essential to vision, the principal means of communicating the information held within and around the objects in the museum¹s collection ...
Light is destructive, specifically to those materials that give colour in the natural world and have been adopted by man as media to decorate or create. This phenomenon first came to the attention of the museum world in 19th Century London through studies by Russell and Abney on the rapid deterioration of watercolour paintings displayed in galleries Since then the profession of museum conservation has constantly reviewed...
the smallest, most precious and delicate objects in a museum's collection are usually to be found displayed in cases. The presence of the case inevitably introduces a barrier between the object and the viewer, depriving them of any experience of the object other than sight. It follows therefore that display case lighting must be of the highest quality to ensure that the viewer can obtain the most from the object displayed...