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Lamps & Fixtures in the FieldA New Gilded Age Classic chandeliers combine with newer light sources to restore the grandeur of two Civil War-era institutions in Philadelphia |
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O n Philadelphia’s Broad Street stand two buildings, two blocks apart, that have been functioning for a total of 300 years. At Broad and Locust Streets is the Academy of Music, which made its debut in 1857, the year James Buchanan became president and Elisha Otis installed the first elevator in New York City. Two blocks away is the Union League, where the original structure was completed in 1865 at the close of the Civil War. Both classic buildings, unique in the city’s living history, have been enhanced by new lighting. THE UNION LEAGUE
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ounded in 1862 as a patriotic society to support President Abraham Lincoln, Philadelphia’s Union League first occupied its headquarters three years later and now occupies a square city block. Subsequent Union Leagues founded around the country followed the Philadelphia group’s organizational principles.
Diners here have a view of the open kitchen through the window wall. Recessed low-voltage halogen MR16 adjustable downlights accentuate the food preparation surfaces for the chef and his staff. Ambient lighting is provided by 32-W lensed compact fluorescent downlights. The tile-covered back wall is highlighted with recessed lens wall wash adjustable halogen 75-W PAR 30 fixtures. Lastly, in the main corridor, the ceiling-suspended fixtures are polished nickel with 14 candelabra lamps, each with a 40-W lamp. Existing wall sconces were retrofitted with translucent glass cylinder shades. Separate preset controls for each dining room are programmed for different times of the day. After a full year of operation, the new dining spaces have proven popular with the League’s membership, and are credited with helping to attract new members to the 149-year-old institution. THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC
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n January 26, 1857, a Grand Ball and Promenade was staged in Philadelphia to celebrate the opening of the Academy of Music. Now the oldest known opera house in continuous use in the U.S., it was the city’s primary classical performance venue before the 2001 opening of the Kimmel Center a few blocks south of its site at Broad and Locust Streets. Designed by architects Napoleon LeBrun and Gustav Runge in the lavish gilded style of Milan’s La Scala Opera House, the Academy has 2,900 seats on the main level and three balconies. Plays and musical performances are still regularly presented.
“To supplement the illumination from the chandeliers, T12s had been installed, probably in the 1960s or 1970s, and a valence was added to conceal them,” says Brandt. She reports that shadows were obvious, and the light emitted was not continuous where sockets occurred. Accent lighting to express the importance of the columns between the arched windows to the room’s architecture did not exist. Brandt and Trosino worked together to find a solution to bring illumination to the ceiling and the intricately detailed architraves, while concealing the lighting elements from view. “The fluorescent lamps had been placed on top of the cove’s ledge. A shallow trough was created just deep enough to conceal the new xenon strips at the cove and the valence was removed,” says Brandt. She specified 20,000-hour, 10-W frosted xenon lamps, 2 in. on center that were evaluated during on-site mock-ups to offer a continuous line of illumination. “Long lamp life was important because of the height the fixtures needed to be,” says Brandt. LEDs were considered, but sources to meet color and dimming capabilities were not available at the time that product decisions had to be made. Between the newly revealed arched windows on the building’s east-facing side and between doorways on the interior corridor side are pedestal-mounted white columns topped with gilded Ionic capitals. A narrow space separates the columns from white pilasters behind them. Brandt says that uplighting from the bases was considered but not feasible. “Our measurements showed that from the original construction, the space between the columns and the wall was inconsistent around the room, so this application wasn’t an option.” The agreed-upon alternative was to carve out a shallow trench behind each column top. Here, a pair of 50-W MR16 adjustable track heads beams light downward and give additional definition to the classically proportioned columns. Each new fixture in the ballroom has five preset programs that are controlled manually via a dimming system. THE AUDITORIUM In the auditorium, the main chandelier underwent a total renovation at the Mathieu Lustrerie facility in France. Measuring 25-ft high and 16-ft in diameter, the 5,000-pound fixture hangs 85 ft from the domed ceiling when fully lowered. Originally, 240 gas burners lit the orchestra level and the three horseshoe-shape tiers above it. “These had been replaced after the turn of the century with PAR lamps,” says architect Trosino who also directed the research on the auditorium chandelier. “There was no rule book on how to take the chandelier apart to ship it overseas to be restored, so we had to figure out the sequence on our own. We even discovered a giant central glass pipe which originally carried the main gas supply. Every part that could be utilized by the French technicians was numbered and lettered,” notes Trosino. A special incandescent lamp created by Mathieu Lustrerie replicates the glow of gas burners. Each slender hollow lamp has an interior coating that makes it appear brighter at its thin rounded tip when lit. The firm sent a team to Philadelphia to assist in the chandelier’s installation. It is now raised and lowered before and after performances by a new hoist mechanism. To carry the new interior image to the Broad Street façade, LED lighting sparkles along the second level, at the balustrade and the top of the pilasters. “These light fixtures graze the façade to bring out its texture and deep color of the brick,” says Brandt. Gas-lit sconces are still retained today on the Broad Street Italianate brick façade exterior as a reminder of the building’s illumination history. KlingStubbins received a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture for the ballroom restoration, plus other awards from the Pennsylvania AIA and preservation groups in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. November 2011 |