Trinity church - Wolfenbüttel, Germany

Churches today have a different social value than at the time of their construction. They blend in with the urban landscape and special architectural features are usually lost in the darkness of night. This was also the case with the Trinity church. The city of Wolfenbüttel, team manager Bernd Sebastian (Wolfenbüttel municipal works) and the TRILUX lighting designer Philipp J. Sydow came together to change this.

Because the Holzmarkt in Wolfenbüttel was modified, the existing lighting concept could no longer be implemented and had to be redesigned. This new lighting concept was already taken into account with design of the complete town square lighting of the Holzmarkt. The biggest hurdles for the fundamental concept were implementability, heritage protection and general installation possibilities for the spotlights and projectors.

Detailed solutions had to be found that were only achieved thanks to the good teamwork of all involved. Ground recessed spots were configured with 35W and 70W gas discharge lamps to specifically accentuate columns and capitals.

Two luminaires were also important for wide-area illumination. These bathe the facade with general light and thus prevent any theatrical effect from the accent lighting. In this way the individual light points blend well with the Baroque architecture of the overall artwork. "This is a far cry from classic floodlighting," said Philipp J. Sydow.

A further aspect of the lighting concept was illumination of both underpasses to the left and right of the front of the church. These were felt by people to be 'spaces of fear' in the past because of poor lighting. The ground recessed spotlights installed there now mean the transition areas can be seen into, they offer protection against inclement weather and also round off the appearance of the facade presentation. The Trinity church was given a new lighting installation according to extensive lighting planning.

The basic requirement was that the illuminated church at the Holzmarkt blends well into the urban cityscape but still functions as a representative eye-catcher. The end result was certainly convincing after six months of planning and three pilot illuminations.