CONSTRUCTION AND TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT OF THE CANTON OF BASEL-STADT | Light Frieze | 2017
An ancient decoration reborn as pixels of light / CONSTRUCTION AND TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT OF THE CANTON OF BASEL-STADT "Light Frieze"
A brick wall that glows like it's breathing. This piece brings back the "frieze"—the decorative band that has adorned buildings since ancient Greece—as a 21st-century media facade.
The problem
The new wing of the Kunstmuseum Basel began with a competition in 2010, with Christ & Gantenbein handling the design. From the very start, they were looking for a way to decorate the building that was part of the architecture itself, not banners or digital signage. It opened in 2016 at a spot where five of the city's streets meet.
The insight
A closed-off, gray brick wall, and light flowing fleetingly across it. That contrast is exactly where the concept lives. The designers said they were struck by how faithful they'd managed to stay to their original idea, even after six years of development. Shadows cast by natural light in the daytime, light glowing from within at night—they reinterpreted the classical frieze style through the lens of innovation.
The idea
The light frieze stretches 115 meters across seven facades, built by embedding white LEDs into 40 horizontal joints. It's designed so the light sources themselves stay hidden from the street, illuminating only the inside of the grooves precisely. A sensor on the roof measures the amount of light falling on the building, and the glow automatically grows brighter as the day fades. From the gaps between the bricks, moving images and text occasionally flicker into view.
What happened
It won the top prize, Gold, at the iF Design Award 2017 (one of 75 winners out of 5,575 entries). It also took Gold at the ADC Awards 2017 (Switzerland), a Gold Pencil at The One Show 2017, and a Pencil Winner at the D&AD Awards 2017.
Afterthought
I really love the attitude here—not pitting old against new, but understanding the essence of a style and translating it into new technology. An architectural style that's existed for thousands of years meets LEDs, and becomes a building that will last for centuries more. It's architecture rather than advertising, but in the sense of speaking to a city, it's about as advertising as it gets.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2017
