See the old in a new light

Ben Cronin visits an opening ceremony at the Louvre, celebrating the completion of the first phase of Toshiba’s contract to replace 4,500 xenon light fittings with LEDs at one of France’s most treasured national monuments

It would be no exaggeration to say that the French feel protective about their cultural landmarks. Nowhere was this more evident than when François Mitterand sanctioned the building of a modern pyramid structure in the main courtyard of Paris’s classical Louvre Palace in 1984 and triggered a national controversy.

Conceived as a fortress and former residence for the kings of France, the palace was ill-equipped to cope with the large numbers of visitors following its transformation into the world’s premier art museum. So, with the patronage of Mitterand, Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei came up with a concept that would open up areas beneath the main courtyard and crown the main entrance with his iconoclastic geometric structure.

Such was the public outcry over the plans for the building that Mitterand was accused of having a ‘Pharaoh complex’ while Ming Pei suffered such a dressing-down from the Commission for Sites and Historic Monuments that his interpreter broke down in tears and ceased to translate for him.

Although the building has subsequently gained widespread acceptance, the furore gives you some idea of what the stakes were when Toshiba recently undertook to renew the exterior lighting in the Pyramid and courtyard areas of the museum with specially designed LEDs.

With echoes of the themes of old-meets-new and east-meets-west in the original story, the Japanese manufacturer has entered into a partnership with the Louvre to replace 4,500 xenon ittings with 3,200 LED fittings that were designed specifically for the project. The completion of the first part of the works - the lighting of the Pyramid, the smaller ‘Pyramidions’ and the Cour Napoléon - was marked by a switching-on ceremony at the museum early in December, at which the manufacturer talked about its partnership with the famous French museum but also staked out its ambitious plans to conquer the European lighting market.

Toshiba probably suffers unfairly from the misconception that, like other Far East manufacturers, it is a chip specialist without any experience of the lighting market. But this ignores a lighting pedigree in Japan that goes back to 1875. The company has now been in the European market for two years and aims to be a top-three player with 20 per cent market share by 2020.

Landmark LED projects with august cultural institutions like the Louvre will no doubt help in breaking down prejudices, but the Japanese company has also sought to hire the best European lighting talent and develop a compelling all-LED portfolio, with products designed specifically for European specifiers.

“LED represents 10 per cent of the global lighting market and will represent 70 per cent of the global market by 2020,” says Francois Seguineau, vice-president of Toshiba Lighting Systems Europe. “Our focus will primarily be in the commercial lighting sector, where growth is anticipated at 85 per cent, then street lighting and finally domestic lighting.”

• The installation will result in a 73 per cent cut in annual power consumption from 392,000W to 105,000W
• The project to illuminate the louvre sees 4,500 xenon fittings replaced with 3,200 LED products - 30 per cent fewer fittings
• Ten models of LED product were specially designed for the louvre project
• According to the manufacturer, the lamps will not need to be replaced for another 20 years. Previously the louvre had to re-lamp every three years
• Toshiba’s partnership with the louvre will last until 2023
• Contrary to urban legend (and the novels of Dan brown) there are 673 glass panels in the louvre Pyramid, and not 666

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