Théâtre National de Bretagne is renowned throughout France for its varied and bold presentations. Home to the European Centre of Theatre and Dance Production, the theatre recently received a thorough renovation consummated in December by a dynamic lighting scheme for the theatre’s facade.

The city of Rennes in Brittany sought to animate the front of the building in order to ‘announce’ the various activities going on inside the theatre. Lighting designer for the exterior illumination was Jean-François Touchard who, with his design team, worked directly with the city on the concept’s details.

Five-Phase Lighting Scheme

Jean-François proposed an 8 hour per day lighting program, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., in five phases: evening, theatre and cinema opening, beginning of play, during play, and, afterwards, when only the bar and restaurant is open.

“In the beginning, we wanted to light the building from the ground up, but the architect added an element that changed that plan,” Jean-François comments. “We then had to find a product that could achieve the same effect from the top and also be small enough that it didn’t change the ‘read’ of the building. It also needed to be as precise as possible in order to avoid lighting up the sidewalk.”

Exterior 200 LED

Thanks to its colors and aesthetic appeal, Martin Professional’s new Exterior 200 LED was the perfect product and could be placed between the glass and the metallic structure of the building, says Jean-François. Because the Exterior 200 LED is stylishly slim, it can be tucked discreetly into architectural design details and requires minimal service and maintenance. “It’s very well integrated because of its design,” he says.

Martin’s Exterior 200 LED™ is a long-life programmable luminaire with full RGB + Amber and White color mixing. It features a comprehensive color range from 44 high power LEDs and choice of optional spread angles. Housed in a beautifully designed weatherproof casing, it is ideal for applications where projection distance is limited.

“The colors needed for the program were easy to create, especially the orange. Moreover, the Exterior 200 LED was the only one of all the products tested to project only vertical lines. All the other products also lit up horizontally with a prism effect. The power and the uniformity of the Exterior 200 LED’s beam made the difference,” Jean-François states.

The luminaires, provided and installed by local company Spectaculaire, are located inside the building at the top of the façade and directed inward to light up the metallic structure. Lighting programming was done on Martin’s PC-based LightJockey™ system and the lighting scheme is controlled via a DMX playback controller.

Jean-François concludes with a nod to Martin France, “I would like to thank Martin for their support and quick response,” he says.