2009-11-20 14:48:49 - Friedrichshafen Airport has a new landmark: the Dornier Aerospace Museum Friedrichshafen depicts the fascination of flying in a spectacular way and merges it with the company history of Dornier. The museum was planned by Munich architects Allmann Sattler Wappner, the arrangement of the exhibition realised by Atelier Brückner. Zumtobel provided more than 200 individually controllable lamps and systems for the 5,000 square metre exhibition. Thus a fascinating lighting diversity is created which makes the dream of flying tangible in a sensual way

Via large window areas, the hangar-shaped building generously lets daylight flow inside with artificial light only being used when necessary. In darkness, the building as such turns into a structure of light in the night, shining from itself and complemented with a light art orchestration by James Turrell.

Inside the museum, visitors are being welcomed by a light-coloured foyer with additionally illuminated areas such as the ticket booths. Light-bands underneath the suspended grate ceiling and Vivo pendant luminaires provide for a welcoming atmosphere. From the roomy foyer with cafeteria and shop, visitors reach the upstairs museum box which in eleven rooms exhibits the history of Dornier as a company as well as aeronautical landmarks. Model aircrafts, drawings and other historical exhibits

are accurately displayed inside glass cabinets with batten luminaires and compact LED spots. At the push of a button, the light goes out and the glass compartment turns into a screen on which vivid pictures from the beginnings of aviation history can be seen. The lighting design by Belzner & Holmes does not require windows and structures the show rooms of the museum box into lighter and darker areas which make for a varied tour and turn various exhibits into highlights. Leaving the museum box and moving on to the gallery, one gets to know technical facts on aeronautical physics – while already being magically attracted by the exhibits visible in the hangar below. There the core of the museum spreads out – a spacious area with historical airplanes, including numerous rarities such as the DO 31, the first vertical take-off aircraft. „Men like my grandfather had a vision and they followed their vision“, says Cornelius Dornier, project manager of the museum and grandson of Claude Dornier. The legendary airplane engineer's visions, that much is clear after the tour, are a true adventure to this day. Slotlight luminaires with a special grid which are attached to rails, provide for a shadowless and even illumination of the hanger.

The Dornier Foundation was able to win over the American lighting artist James Turrell to stage the outer facade at night. By means of an impressive lighting choreography, James Turrell, himself an enthusiastic pilot, realised a lighting artwork which in its harmonic colour gradient leads the visitors' perception towards new dimensions. This experience is realised by using flood lights and spotlights produced by Space Cannon, a Zumtobel company which is specialised in outdoors lighting orchestration. Thanks to using the innovative 16-bit control, the luminaires' colour space was extended to several million colours and offers nearly unlimited freedom in lighting composition. Without LED technology and highly sophisticated control engineering, installations of this kind are not feasible. More than 65,000 differentiations in luminosity and millions of colour differentiations are possible. And that in any type of time lapse, from an imperceptibly slow change to a flash of lightning. The lighting technique used is state-of-the-art.

The legendary airplane engineer's pioneer work is presented at Dornier Museum with a flux and dynamic that becomes visible in its light art facade and in a manner that holds true for the entire history of aeronautics, from its beginnings all the way to space exploration. Silvius Dornier, the museum's initiator and son of the famous engineer who passed away in 1969, states: „I hope that the museum will be a meeting point for all people who want to learn from the past and who are focused on the chances and tasks of the future“.

Project data:
Project: Dornier Museum, Friedrichshafen/D
Client : Dornier Stiftung f. Luft- und Raumfahrt, Munich/D
Architecture: Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten, Munich/D
Exhibition design: Atelier Brückner, Stuttgart/D
Lighting design: Belzner Holmes, Heidelberg/D
Electrical consultant: Raible + Partner, Reutlingen/D
Light art: James Turrell
Light art plan: Torsten Braun, Limburg/D
Lighting solution:
Space Cannon Olympus RG B+W and Maya RGB
Hilio RGB+W, Slotlight, Simes Focus
Vivo spots, Tecton lighting system, Vitrale spots, Light lines MLL, ZE