Lighting transforms giant grain silos into works of art

When Glamox lighting engineer Stian Gundersen is asked what is the most unusual lighting project he’s participated in, he smiles and says, “That’s got to be lighting the giant silos of the Kunstsilo Art Museum, in Kristiansand.”

The Kunstsilo (Art Silo) is on the small island of Odderøya in Kristiansand, Norway, and opened its doors in May this year. The stunning concrete building is a former grain store that has been ingeniously transformed into an impressive minimalist-style art museum housing more than 7,500 unique works, including the Tangen collection, the world's largest collection of Nordic modernism.

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The architects made a feature of the building’s cathedral-like silos, which are 38 metres high. Illumination from such high ceilings presented a challenge but lighting designer Kathrine Hjelmeset of Henning Larsen Architects took inspiration from industrial lighting, specifying 26 Glamox i90 industrial LED luminaires. These powerful lights are more at home in lighting high-ceiling warehouses and industrial plants and were installed by OneCo.

The industrial luminaires are suspended from the ceiling in each silo, providing a narrow beam and controlled using a DALI control system. Only around 40% of each luminaire’s 60,000-lumen illumination capacity is used, and the luminaires have a long 100,000-hour lifetime. They provide a neutral white light (at 4000K with 90 CRI).

The overall project of lighting the Kunstsilo, of which the silo lighting is the part provided by Glamox, has been nominated for the Norwegian Lighting Award.

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Photo credit: Halvor Gudim