• Lighting Anthropology

Pitt Rivers Museum

Oxford, United Kingdom

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Lighting Anthropology

The Pitt Rivers Museum displays archaeological and ethnographic objects from all parts of the world and all time periods. It is truly a global museum. It was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his collection to the University of Oxford.

Housed in a small three galleried building at the rear of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, the collection of important artifacts has grown from more than 26,000 objects in 1884, to over half a million today.

In its active commitment to reducing carbon emissions, the University of Oxford’s electrical team selected the Pitt Rivers Museum as a prime space for an energy efficient lighting upgrade. After a lengthy selection process, the museum chose SORAA’s LED lamps to save energy and money and to illuminate its rare collections of anthropology and archaeology artefacts.

The University installed 500 SORAA VIVID MR16 LED lamps that are estimated to save the museum £45,000 over the next 5 years and will reduce its carbon emissions by 44 tonnes each year. Now the more than 400,000 people who visit the museum annually can get a glimpse of the past illuminated by lighting that is doing its part to save the future. In addition, not only does the new LED lighting make the museum more energy efficient and the displays easier to see, they also emit no harmful ultra-violet light, protecting the artifacts from UV light damage.

While increased efficiency was a desired outcome, more importantly the artifacts and exhibits needed to be flawlessly illuminated and rendered. The lighting designers for the museum chose SORAA’s lamps with Violet-Emission 3-Phosphor (VP₃) technology to showcase the space’s industrial design and to illuminate the colors and whiteness of the relics on display.

“The SORAA LED lamp produces color rendition that is comparable to a halogen light source,” said Robert Gregg, University of Oxford. “Utilising the SORAA SNAP system, we now have the flexibility to adjust the beam angles for our many displays.”

Photo Credit: Redshift Media | www.redshift-media.co.uk

CLIENT

University of Oxford

LOCATION

Oxford, United Kingdom

PRODUCT(S)

MR16, SNAP System

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