Lighting the façade of the Santa Croce Basilica
During the F-Light 2016 Festival, the new façade lighting for the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence was perfected. This is a dynamic lighting concept that plays with the intensity and colour temperature of white light and that includes the new static light configuration. Artificial light, in its impalpable immateriality, suspended between spirit and life becomes the element capable of triggering the deepest emotional chords of a community. The lighting proposal theatrically energises the surface of the façade, creating an empathy, an almost "physical" contact, with the occasional passerby. The choice to work with white light, modulated by varying the colour temperature and luminous flux, allows for the staging of the long "construction" time and, with its "pulsating rhythm", activates the façade in a sort of membrane that absorbs and re-evokes the spiritual and ideal energy of the "illustrious ones" who dwell in the Basilica, in a quest for the participation of the contemporary citizen in a synchronous beat. A breath, a beat of life - not mere set design and aseptic theatrics - but the construction of a space that engages historical memory and contemporary issues, including knowledge of the culture and experience of collective life, between the monument and the city. Warm light at 3000K is projected on the statue of Dante who is the narrator and spectator the "construction" of light on the façade: the first band of the Basilica, the one with the portals, is illuminated by light, again at 3000K, which then rises to the next band, and further up again up to the final tympanum, illuminating the entire façade.
Now the light level on the statue of Dante drops to 30% of the projector power. This is the signal that initiates the pulsation on the entire façade. The colour temperature starts to change from 3000K to 4000K and vice versa in cycles of 40 seconds. The pulsation ends with a pass over the entire façade at a temperature of 4000K, with the dimming at 25%. The variation of light intensity concentrates on the central rosette with cycles of 30 seconds and finally terminates with a static illumination of the entire façade at 4000K. The entire effect is obtained thanks to 22 MaxiWoody Compact Tunable White LED projectors and the DMX control system. Energy consumption is reduced by 68%, maintaining the same levels of illumination at 25 lux while the façade reliefs acquire a greater depth in the static light condition. The dynamic light installation, performed in loop, is programmable according to various times and events, alternating with moments of static lighting achieving the dual effect of "lighting with emotion" and "lighting with illustration".
