Mankind has always taken light for granted. This is because light has always been there and it will continue to be there. Light is useful in every aspect of life. It would not be possible for people to see if there was no light. Light has therefore played a very important role in determining how human beings conduct their usual activities. A museum on the other hand is an institution that specializes in the collection of artifacts and other objects that are of historical, artistic, cultural and scientific importance. It then presents them to the public for viewing. Museums therefore need sufficient light in order for the visitors to be comfortable while viewing the exhibits. When a museum is being designed therefore, it should employ a team of experts who would ensure that there is sufficient lighting.
Lighting in museums plays a very important role in determining the perception of visitors on the museum building and the artifacts found there. It is therefore important for the designer of museum lighting to come up with a successful lighting plan so that he can be able to successfully deal with any issues that may conflict with the lighting design of the museum. Most museum designers are mostly concerned with how they can come up with an illuminating artwork that would be effective in lighting the museum. Designers also face challenges while trying to address issue of visual comfort for those people who visit museums1. If designers cannot address the issue of providing the visitors visual comfort, they may end up handicapping the ability of the visitors to view the different exhibits present in museums.
In order to make lighting more effective, most designers make use of halogen and incandescent lights which do not have damaging effects on the artworks that are found in museums. Museums also ensure that they do not keep their artworks displayed for long in order to minimize the effect of light on the artworks. The most effective forms of lighting in museums include artificial lighting and top lighting. Top lighting facilitates reflection in museums while artificial lighting facilitates the incorporation of artworks in the sections of the museum where natural light cannot reach. Top light is more effective because it allows for the incorporation of artificial and natural light while at the same time facilitating the elimination of shadow formation inside the museum.
Top lighting is a very important to consider when illuminating museums. This is because it does not interfere with the viewing capability of visitors in museums. In this case, it is not possible for a person or any object to interfere with the direction of light thereby preventing the formation of shadows on the exhibits being viewed by visitors in museums. Reflections are also undesirable in while viewing artworks and other forms of exhibits. When light is made to come from the top, it does not interfere with the visual comfort of visitors.
Top light is very easy to reflect to an object without interfering with the viewing capability of visitors thereby making it one of the most successful forms of lighting to use in museums. Top light is also advantageous in that it helps to utilize natural light and then reflect it to the different forms of artwork that are present in a museum without forming shadows. It is therefore important for various designers to ensure that the manner in which museums are designed allows for the incorporation of natural lighting thereby leading to conservation of energy especially during the day. There are various ways of making top light successful. Reflecting top light is one of them.
Even when many museums argue that natural lighting has a significant contribution to lighting museums, there are times when natural light becomes insufficient. For example in the northern latitudes, there are times such as during the winter season when these regions have little or no natural light. In addition, there are various artifacts that are light sensitive thereby making natural light unsuitable to light them. It is therefore important for museums to create optimum conditions which would facilitate viewing of artworks in museums. The emphasis should be laid on the lighting of artworks as well as visual comfort of the visitors2.
Lighting in museums should allow a person to adapt to the differing light levels while throughout the museum. Most museums are therefore implementing measures such as security lighting, emergency lighting, and service lighting which mostly facilitate the cleanup of museums.
Lighting in most museums is therefore being focused on understanding how people see things so that the form of lighting that the museums implement becomes successful. Most museums should therefore put into consideration light sources first while deciding on a lighting scheme. The schemes adopted should render the colors of materials very accurately. The main sources of lighting in museums include Tungsten Halogen, because it has the highest color rendering capability. It is then followed by fluorescent. The various light delivering mechanisms that are adopted by many museums include reflectors, lenses, sculpture lenses, diffusing lenses, and fiber optics3. With the various advancements that have been made in artificial lighting, most museums have found it necessary to substitute natural lighting with artificial lighting.
The paper will analyze 3 different museums which include San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the University Art Museum in Berkeley and demonstrate how they implement their lighting systems. These museums have reduced dramatic variations in the light levels thereby making it possible for the visitors to appreciate the different forms of artwork that they display. This is because the human eye requires several minutes to adjust to large changes in levels of light. The three museums also make use of daylight to enable them illuminate exhibits since natural light creates more positive effects on exhibits as opposed to when they use electricity4.
Therefore, it is true that lighting is a very important issue that museums should consider while carrying out their daily activities. In addition, it is true that though there has been significant improvement in various forms of lighting adopted by museums, many museums still make use of natural light because it is very effective in terms of illuminating the different artworks and other forms of artworks present.
Bibliography
Shaw, K, Museum Lighting in the Second Decade of the 21st Century, 2010. Web.
Vital Signs, Vital Signs Project: A Lighting Study of Three Museums, 2010. Web.
Footnotes
- Shaw, K, Museum Lighting in the Second Decade of the 21st Century, 2010. Web.
- Shaw, K, Museum Lighting in the Second Decade of the 21st Century, 2010. Web.
- Vital Signs, Vital Signs Project: A Lighting Study of Three Museums, 2010. Web.
- Vital Signs, Vital Signs Project: A Lighting Study of Three Museums, 2010. Web.