Vratislavice nad Nisou is a district in Liberec – the fifth largest city in the Czech Republic – and their forward thinking municipality led by Mayor Lukas Pohanka wanted an extra special touch for its landmark Church of the Holy Trinity, a beautifully well preserved and now protected single baroque building dating back to 1700.
In recent years a new stone road and stone steps were built and complemented by stylish lamps and benches adjacent to the Church, new trees and flowers were planted around the building when it was refurbished, and. “illuminating the Church was the next logical step“ he stated.
This was an intricate task to get just right. Locally based architectural lighting specialist ArchLights, was asked to propose an appropriate lighting scheme that highlighted its attractive architecture, and their team led by lighting designer Pavel Holzknecht and owner Michal Rehak, chose Anolis ArcLine Mini Outdoor 18 and ArcLine Mini Outdoor 36 LED luminaires together with ArcSource Outdoor 4 MC Pixels.
Anolis was selected for the compact size of the products, plus their excellent quality and superior colour mixing capabilities, and the brand was also highly recommended by architectural lighting consultant Petr Kolmacka, who has helped with technical specification and final programming, as well as brought the installation to life.
Of course, being manufactured in the Czech Republic, everyone involved was absolutely delighted that they could be patriotic as well as receive a quality and leading LED brand solution!
The concept of lighting the Church was initiated by Pohanka and his colleague Pavel Podlipny. Pohanka has travelled extensively and seen some of the positive effects that urban lighting and a bit of imagination can bring to communities.
ArchLights also recently lit the city castle in Decin with spectacular results. The company is actually a new division of well-established sister company Reykokeyko, a design, ideas, integration, production and engineering specialist. Michal Rehak is a savvy trend-spotter and thought the time was right to have a company dedicated to the art of architectural and ‘architainment’ lighting.
For Anolis CZ, the project was co-ordinated by Josef Valchar Jr on sales and Radim Zlebek who assisted with some of the technical elements of the installation.
The challenge was to ensure that the Church lighting was elegant and in keeping with its unique and well preserved architecture which was created by Marek Antoine Canevalle, an Italian residing in Prague in 1700.
Photos by Michal Rehak
Another was physically fitting the products to the building unobtrusively and preserving its full aesthetic and structural integrity, a tricky task needing a lot of precision and diligence.
The ArcLine Mini Outdoor strips are installed directly inside the three window cavities which are high up along the road side façade of the Church, each window features segmented inner arcs.
The ArcSource Outdoor 4 MC Pixels are mounted directly on the façade of the road-facing wall, the annex and the tower on special brackets, positioned to outline the clean architectural lines and form of the building from the ground to the different height roofs.
The ArcLine Mini Outdoor products have a slim 27mm diameter and provide a high powered linear LED source for areas that are inaccessible to larger fittings. They have a tough extruded aluminium housing which is perfect for both interior and exterior usage thanks to an IP67 rating.
The ArcSource Outdoor 4 MC Pixel contains one RGBW multi-chip and when combined can create dramatic ‘media style’ effects with very accurate colouring, dimming and intensity. With multiple beam angles, precision optics and a small, compact housing, these were also an ideal choice for the project.
“Anolis has a great range of products on one hand, and the company provides fantastic service right through from the consultation to the technical delivery and after sales support and this, with the time pressure we were all under, was a real benefit,” stated Michal.
They had just six weeks between the city council approving the project and allocating the budget … and the switch on!
Finding expedient cable routes for all the fixtures was also a brain-teaser as it was important they were concealed and as short as possible. For that reason, they are powered by Anolis ArcPower 600s DRS located inside the Church near two Hager control switchboards, one in the control room and one in the roof, which are connected via DMX.
The municipality can currently change between 6 different pre-programmed schemes – cool white, warm white or a combination of both, a nationality color scheme with red, blue, white and two different celebratory schemes which use the full colour range.
The reaction from the public to the new lighting scheme has been excellent and the Church has become even more of a local talking point and an additional attraction for visitors coming to the region.
The citizens of Vratislavice and many more are now able to enjoy the Church’s impressive architecture after dark as well as during the daytime, and the mayor and his team are delighted with the results.
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