A&O Technology provides Andreas Boehlke with equipment for a variety of FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS™ projects
A two-week jamboree of light shows, firework displays and illuminations of all kinds, the FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS 2007 transformed the German capital once again into a metropolis with a unique sparkle. Historic landmarks and locations within the city, such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Funkturm (Radio Tower), Berlin Cathedral and the Fernsehturm (TV Tower), along with 40 other major buildings, were lent heightened emphasis by spectacular illuminations, projections, pyrotechnic displays and similar events. In addition to its sponsorship of the Fernsehturm, Palais am Festungsgrabengraben and Lichtdach am DomAquarée projects, A&O Technology played a key role in the festival through its direct collaboration on four major projects with the lighting designer Andreas Boehlke, who was the fount of inspiration and creative mastermind behind some 35 of the illuminations. The programming for the four projects was handled by Jens Probst (A&O Vision), with A&O Technology supplying a lavish array of lighting systems from its rental park for the 12-day event.
At Alexanderplatz, FALCON BEAM 7 kW searchlights ringing the base of the 368-metre Fernsehturm at equal intervals were the stars of a dramatic half-hour lightshow. The programme, which played back automatically, constituted a breathtaking and dynamic spectacle. Orange accounted for about a third of the hues on display, that being the CI colour of the project’s sponsor, BSR (Berliner Stadtreinigung). As the show proceeded, the FALCON beams moved in a helical pattern outwards, functioning here as searchlights projecting columns of light into the Berlin night sky.
Before the FALCON BEAM 7 kW luminaires could work their magic on the Fernsehturm, however, they had to be rushed back from Shanghai where only a few days earlier they had featured prominently in Robert (“Bob”) Dickinson’s lighting design for the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics 2007.
Another FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS project involved the mounting on two-metre scaffolding at the entrance to the DomAquarée passage of some six A&O searchlights, the beams of which formed the girders supporting a white ‘Roof of Light’ that could be admired from the Nikolai Quarter on the other side of the park.
The third project, the illumination of the Palais am Festungsgraben, comprised the use of SKY FALCON ARC colour 1.2 kW luminaires trained on the front façade of the palace to bathe it in coloured light. The lighting choreography, with its impressive colour changes, was controlled automatically using an e-cue system.
A boat shuttling up and down the river Spree was the principal protagonist in the fourth dramatic presentation. With batteries of SKY FALCON ARC colour 1.2 kW luminaires on both sides of the vessel, it was able in its passage to deliver a broadside of gradually changing colours to buildings lining both sides of the river.
The FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS was accompanied by a variety of other artistic and cultural events with light as their common theme. The driving forces behind the festival were City Stiftung Berlin, Union Investment Real Estate AG, the lighting designer Andreas Boehlke and festival organizer Birgit Zander of Zander & Partner Event Marketing.
Photos: © Andreas Boehlke; A&O Lighting Technology GmbH
