Ashmolean Museum – Randolph Sculpture Lighting Upgrade
Randolph Sculpture Gallery lighting upgrade for Beard Construction – Completed 2012
Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum is the world’s first university museum, built from 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities given to the museum by Elias Ashmole in 1677. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment and, in late 2011, new galleries focusing on treasures from Egypt and Nubia were unveiled.
The lighting upgrade was carried out in close collaboration with the museum. We installed new track lighting and architectural lighting, a Hoare Lea scheme involving clever track-mounted LED spotlights, including the Type X from Mike Stoane Lighting and the DR2 by Remote Controlled Lighting. The track we used coordinated sympathetically with the decorative ceiling cornice straps, and we developed special brackets for remote control lighting to ensure close coordination with the cornice straps and the track system. The resulting installation was both minimal and neat.
Praise for Monard’s work
“The Randolph Sculpture Gallery is one of the most iconic spaces in the Museum and is regularly used for a variety of different events and is particularly popular for weddings. We therefore needed a flexible scheme that provided both world-class lighting for the Arundel marbles during the day but was also appropriate for evening events. A great challenge which has been met by this remarkably flexible lighting scheme which enhances the architecture, highlights the collections and enables us to have wonderful evening events.”
Harry Phythian-Adams, Executive Officer
“The Ashmolean is delighted with the lighting scheme, the space shows the Ashmolean’s world renowned Arundel Marbles, which are now displayed in a gallery which is beautifully integrated into the Ashmolean’s new Ancient World floor.”
Professor Christopher Brown CBE, Director Ashmolean
“We were tasked with a general refurbishment of the Randolph Gallery with a completion deadline set in stone to accommodate an important function. The lighting and electrical works formed the major part of these works and were crucial to the success of the project. We worked in partnership with Monard, the Museum and consultants to develop and deliver the scheme ahead of time and to a high standard which the customer was delighted with. Monards were key to the success of this project and the approach of both
office and site staff was excellent. They were flexible & considerate on site in the difficult environment of working in a live museum and their technical input and advice to overcome design issues was a invaluable in achieving the overall success of the scheme.”
Nick Bradley, Beards Construction
You can find out more about the project here.