Celebration with Spotlights: Relighting a German Church

The Roman Catholic parish church of St. Mariä Geburt in Grevenbroich, Germany, a small town near Dusseldorf, was built in 1930. The interior surprises, with an unexpected and similarly unusual, spatial form. The long rectangular, single-nave sanctuary is spanned by a low pointed barrel vault that instantly reminds one of an upside down hull. Deep lunette-type window reveals accentuate the vault, lending the space a rhythmic structure.

The interior was recently subjected to refurbishment. The renovation work also consisted of fundamentally redesigning the church lighting. The interior was previously illuminated by two parallel rows of glass pendant luminaires. Replacing the old, plastered-in cabling would have probably meant replastering the entire vault. For preservation reasons, but above all to reduce the renovation costs in Grevenbroich, alternative lighting options were sought.

The answer was found in ERCO track spotlights, which offered an efficient and technically feasible approach to high-quality lighting design with maximum flexibility.

One of the many advantages for the builders was the fact that a track system did not require new wiring. Furthermore, the U-shaped layout of the track was achieved using the existing fixtures for the pendant luminaires. However, the most convincing argument as far as the parishioners were concerned was that the ERCO solution significantly improved the quality of lighting inside the church.

Optec 24W lens wall washers in warm white achieve uniform vertical illuminance for optimum ambient lighting inside the church, creating an atmosphere that brings its unique architecture to life. Supplementary accent lighting is provided by Optec spotlights of the same wattage and color temperature, with spot and wide flood distributions, emphasize important areas and objects.