Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin
Client: Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Bauen und Wohnen, Berlin
Architect: Egon Eiermann, Karlsruhe, 1963
Lighting Design: Ulrike Brandi Licht
Completion: 2010
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin
The blue glow of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church had faded over time. Its distinctive glass façade consists of more than 20,000 individual glass windows, but illuminating it also came with high energy consumption.
The French glass artist Gabriel Loire designed stained-glass windows for more than 400 churches around the world. He also prepared these windows in his workshop in Chartres. There, coloured glass was broken into pieces and set into a concrete grid. The fractured surfaces of the glass pieces refract the incoming light like cut gemstones.
Lighting tests carried out outdoors in sunny France did not reveal that the blue glass absorbs most of the light. Through test installations and measurements within the space between the glass layers, we identified suitable LED systems. They now make the Memorial Church shine brightly again, with an appropriate light distribution curve, excellent colour rendering and high energy efficiency.
The only drawback is that the old tower ruins continue to be illuminated far too brightly.