Messages in Stone

A grey brick facade: archaic, hermetic, proud. At the same time: an ephemeral luminous sign, playful patterns dancing through the wall. There’s a concept behind the contrast. Based on the idea of luminescent pixel bricks, iart, working together with the architects from Christ & Gantenbein, developed the world’s first intelligent light frieze.

The light frieze interprets the classical element of a frieze, with a revolutionary twist. Not only does natural light reflect off the relief, but now artificial light also shines out from within the joints. Precisely controlled LEDs allow the facade to display moving images and text for moments at a time.

As part of the architecture, the light frieze disrupts the otherwise timeless appearance of the museum. It offers the opportunity to inform the public about current exhibitions and events, but is also an independent medium that artists can utilise for their work.

The narrow horizontal joints of the light frieze create a fine relief and are cast in shadow by the incident daylight. White LEDs are set into the joints in such a way that they cannot be seen from the street yet precisely illuminate the specially formed grooves. The joint can thus appear darker, lighter, or as bright as the rest of the facade.

Architect Emmanuel Christ of Christ & Gantenbein and Valentin Spiess of iart met for a discussion about the joint collaboration, and they are amazed how close they have kept to the original idea, despite six years of development.

The project impressed expert juries worldwide and won 16 prestigious design awards, including the Media Architecture Award, The One Show: Best in Discipline and Gold Award, and the Gold Cannes Lion.