Spanish Gallery
Bishop Auckland, England, UK
Client: The Auckland Project
Exhibition Designers: StudioMB
Services: Lighting Design and specialist technician supply
Overview: Conversion of historic buildings into an art gallery
NSLD designed lighting and supplied specialist lighting technicians for the installation and commissioning of the UK’s first gallery dedicated to the art and culture of the Spanish Golden Age.
A large collection of artworks is presented over four floors of a converted grade II listed bank and school in an historic market square. One of the UK’s largest collections of 16th and 17th century Spanish artworks outside London, the galleries now hold masterpieces by renowned artists including El Greco, Murillo, Zurbarán and Velázquez. International loans from prodigious galleries frequently augment the permanent collection.
The project’s intention was not to create an art gallery in the traditional sense but instead create a piece of experiential design that would weave these artworks together and bring forward a more captivating and compelling narrative.
The largest gallery on the ground floor is cathedral like in its volume, with an overall height of eight and a half metres to the lighting truss. Smaller galleries have much lower ceiling heights bringing a closer and more intimate experience. The lighting design equips the museum technicians with a suite of lighting equipment that serves all spaces, and which can be reconfigured easily when artworks are added to the displays or returned to loaning galleries.
A detailed lighting study was undertaken for the 120 plus artworks on display, ensuring each was lit with an aesthetic consideration to the world within the artwork as well as a practical consideration of the external world of the gallery including energy use and artwork light exposure. High quality efficient LED light sources with high colour rendering ensure that the colours of the paintings are faithfully reproduced. Light output was predicted and matched to conservation requirements for each artwork, ensuring the lights are used electrically efficiently with minimal dimming.