Astera impacts on Human Rights Day
- Details
Eugen Blersch and Benny Coppik of Frankfurt based AES Veranstaltungstechnik drove this project to light the landmark - originally a Lutheran Church in 1789, the year of the French Revolution and now a busy and charismatic events space - in a special blue colour.
In 1848 the Paulskirche became the seat of the first German National Assembly - publicly and freely elected legislative body - and an important symbol in the struggle for human rights.
Working for Frankfurt city council and sponsored by the local branch of Human Rights Watch, Eugen and Benny first realised this lighting installation in 2017.
AES’s Project’s department has an event safety division with close ties to many of the city’s municipal authorities and a proposal to illuminate the building for this special day had been in existence for some time. However, there were several major physical challenges, explains Eugen.
A seasonal Christmas Market in very close proximity to the Paulskirche made it impossible to run any cables or rig large lights / stands anywhere that was convenient for an effective lighting scheme.
Some lateral and practical thinking to overcome this obstacle led to specification of the Astera battery powered wirelessly operated LED system as a solution.
In addition to the major advantage of needing no cables, the fixtures, which comprised 150 x Astera AX10 SpotMax’s, 50 x AX7 SpotLites and AX5 TriplePARs from the German manufacturer offer seamless battery management plus bi-directional communication and control via a neat, intuitive tablet app.
“In my opinion, Astera is the best such LED fixture currently capable of realising a tricky and exacting installation like this in a short timeframe,” says Eugen.
Gaining access to all the adjacent properties and premises and blocking the relevant parking spaces required a serious amount of time and preparation, and this is also where AES’s local government contacts were useful.
There was the additional challenge of effectively lighting the lumen-consuming red brick surface in the deep electric blue colour, which required extremely accurate positioning of fixtures.
These specific Astera luminaires were selected to ensure that every centimetre of the walls and the spire of the Paulskirche was evenly bathed in excellent light for the duration of the installation.
“These three very strong Astera products provided the comprehensive coverage we needed,” comments Eugen, “and thanks to Astera’s carefully calibrated LED engine, we could produce the fabulous blue of the signature colour.”
(Jim Evans)
