Medieval Charm With LED Illumination
Southern Tyrolia is one of my most favorite places on Earth and for many years we have visited this magical place once a year. The small fortified medieval town Glorenza (or Glurns) is next on our list of places to spend some time. This charming small town, the smallest in Southern Tyrolia, has been able to preserve its historic character and is considered an architectural jewel.
One more reason for me to visit is the complete renovation to the lighting of the town, designed and executed by Ewo, a Southern Tyrolean company that develops and produces high quality modular lighting systems for public spaces. I visited their booth at Light + Building 2016 and was intrigued by their projects all over the world.
Changing the lighting from mercury vapor lamps to LED luminaires not only reduced the energy consumption considerably, but added to the aesthetics of the historic buildings.
"The natural variety of the shapes and colors of the buildings in the small city are emphasized with simple, succinct accents. Nothing is superfluous – that also holds true with regard to the distribution of the light: the original positioning of the light sources was kept, but side streets were in any case less brightly illuminated than main streets and squares. Thus shadings on the lens optics that were specially designed for this project ensured that less light met the wall. And no light was shined upward, so the nighttime sky above Glurns remains dark." - Ewo Photography: Oskar Da Riz
