The Albertinum, which is part of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (Public Art Collections) Dresden, accommodates some 10,000 world-famous paintings and sculptures from the period of romanticism up to the present. Since its extensive renovation, which had become necessary because of the disastrous flood of the Elbe River in 2002, a fresh spirit has made itself felt throughout the Renaissance building, an armoury originally erected in 1889.

The lighting concept was developed by Lichtvision GmbH in collaboration with Zumtobel. Lighting designer Karsten Ehling maintins that valuable exhibits need to be treated with special care, and adds: “Lighting design involves more than just a beautiful idea. The concept has to be technically feasible; building maintenance is an important aspect. In museums in particular, conservational aspects must be taken into account as well, i.e., the quantity of light acceptable for an old painting, for instance.” Precisely these aspects have been taken into account by the lighting designers and electrical consultants when they implemented the building-wide lighting solution.

From the museum lobby, visitors directly enter the sculpture hall where delicate works of art are on display. The newly designed inner courtyard is situated directly next to this hall. Staab architects converted this previously unused area into an impressive atrium topped off by a two-storey depot. Like a huge bridge without any supports to rest on, the 70 m long, 25 m wide and 10 m high depot spans the 1700 sqm inner court yard. In this way, the architects around Volker Staab have created a sophisticated “ark for art.”

“On the underside of the depot, we have fitted a semitransparent spanned ceiling visually creating the effect of a dimmed luminous ceiling,” explained Volker Staab. In reality, filtered daylight only enters the yard through the outer ceiling sheets. Zumtobel light ribbons have also been installed there, which can be additionally switched on via a lighting control system, if required.

Incident daylight is monitored by an external daylight sensor installed on the roof of the Albertinum. Whenever daylight is not sufficient to provide the illuminance level required, the continuous row systems are also switched on via the lighting management system. This ensures that whenever the weather is bad, or when it gets dark early in winter, for instance, the atrium keeps its light feel.

In addition, spotlights have been installed along the entire length of the ceiling sheets. Each can be individually addressed and controlled via the lighting control system, by means of DALI control. Focused accent lighting is mainly used for special events. In this way, the huge area can be illuminated by multifacetted light – ranging from uniform ambient lighting through to lighting cones in a variety of shades.