Guiding Lights
Models of excellence in church illumination

By RaeAnn Slaybaugh

More so than in most public spaces, church lighting can be tricky. Too little and no one can read their Bibles. Too much and worshippers are reminded of their dentist's offices--not a calming thought for anyone. For worship spaces, designers know the best lighting schemes create an aura of sanctity without sacrificing function. Here are just a few award-winning projects to shed some light on how excellence looks.

An ethereal effect

Herz Jesu Kirche (Heart of Jesus Church)
Munich, Germany

• 2000 GE Edison Award (GE Lighting)
• 2001 International Association of Lighting Designers Award of Merit
• 2002 International Illumination Design Awards of Merit and Excellence

Religious sanctuaries generally present serious lighting challenges--most notably the difficulty of enhancing the beauty of the facility while keeping its integrity, history and functionality. George Sexton was able to accomplish these tasks with amazing detail to beauty and efficiency.

These were the words spoken by Mary Beth Gotti, GE Lighting Institute Manager, the night she presented the distinguished GE Edison Award to lighting designer George Sexton of Washington, DC-based George Sexton Associates. Sexton was recognized for the Herz Jesu Kirche (Heart of Jesus Church) project in Munich, Germany, where he used a system of layered lighting to enhance and enlighten the architecture of this beautiful, surreal space.

Sexton chose tungsten halogen sources to illuminate the church and PAR56 wall-washing lights to vertically illuminate the louvers and cross. Par56 adjustable fixtures, located over the shoulder, provided horizontal illumination for the congregation. Specific functions of the church were accentuated and enhanced by the lighting and control systems. For ease of use, a 21-zone present dimming system was incorporated to control every layer of light in the church.

Each fixture was concealed and recessed into the ceiling to reduce glare and the appearance of hardware. Louvers were angled to direct sunlight toward the altar and respond to the sun's movement. As a result, the appearance of the cross evolves throughout the day relative to the quantity of daylight vs. electrical light.

"This intricate design makes the church glow like a lantern," Gotti added. "Heart of Jesus is a spiritual focal point for the Munich community."

One year later, this "lantern" reference was echoed when presenters from the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) also recognized Sexton's design in a special ceremony. That night, they praised his ability to highlight Herz Jesu Kirche as a "lantern and spiritual focal point" for Munich and honored Sexton with their annual Award of Merit.

IALD representatives said their favorite elements of the design were the light rays radiating from behind the cross and the recessed wall-washing lights illuminating the metal mesh cross on the wall behind the altar. They also praised the church's two-door design, which makes up the entire front of the church, letting passersby admire the comforting sanctuary day and night--an effect made especially pleasing by its lighting scheme.

Lightening the mood of a somber space

The Chapel at St. James Church
New York

• 1996 Illuminating Engineering Society Lumen Award
• 1996 CSL Lighting "Applie" Award

Work on the chapel at St. James Church in New York began with a study to determine how re-lamping the existing nave chandeliers could make the space more welcoming.

"We discovered that the downlights in the chandeliers had amber glass filters, which were very dirty," explains George Brouillett, spokesperson for Charles Cosler Theatre Design in New York. When Cosler designers removed the amber filters, Brouillett says the amount of light nearly doubled. Uplights in the chandeliers were also re-lamped, lending more luminescene to the church's polychromed ceiling. Also in the nave, new downlights were added to side and center aisles to highlight processions and bridal parties.

In the chancel, downlighting was added to spotlight various celebrants, and the original lighting--one central, 12-arm chandelier with a center downlight--was replaced with four new chandeliers.

"The original downlight provided lighting only to the very center of the chapel, leaving the edges quite dark," Brouillett explains. "The four new fixtures provide even coverage over the pews as well as uplighting for the ceiling."

The baptistery, which won its own Applie Award from manufacturer CSL Lighting, needed a complete overhaul. "The existing lighting was quite dim, and none of the rich iconography of the room was highlighted," Brouillett explains. The solution was MR11 downlights and spotlights. Four new bowl fixtures were also added to lighten up the formerly dark, unseen ceiling and cast vivid blue accents created with stencil-cut water patterns.

A central dimming system controls all three areas of the church, consisting of a theatrical 24-channel, two-scene preset board, and a device that reads settings on the theatrical console and records them into preset memories. "This makes operation very easy," Brouillett says. "The celebrant only needs to press a button to get the desired lighting for that area, and the theatrical board permits more complex programming of the lighting during special events and holiday services."

Worshipping on neutral ground

Multi-Faith Spiritual Center
Northeastern University (Boston)

• 1999 Young Architects Design Award (Boston Society of Architects)
• 1999 Religious Art and Architecture Design Award
• 2000 Interior Design Magazine Award of Distinction
• 2000 International Association of Lighting Designers Award of Merit

When fire destroyed the campus chapel of Northeastern University, experts from Lam Partners, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., were enlisted to resurrect a new chapel in the student center. Whereas some churches aim to spotlight their iconography, the Multi-Faith Spiritual Center had no such elements; it was designed to accommodate the needs of different faith groups.

Lighting the space would be a challenge, but with notable projects (including Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain and the Boston Architectural Center) under their belts, Principal Paul Zaferiou and Designer Glenn Heinmiller were up to it. The result is a transformation from windowless, generic room to award-winning worship space. >

The new design of the center instills a sense of tranquility, achieved with back- and front-lit glass panels and perforated metal sheet domes that can be illuminated to suit a variety of services. The orientation of the space can be altered to accommodate both eastern and western religions.

The design is so neutral that architect Monica Ponce de Leon of the Boston-based firm Office dA, says it could easily be mistaken for a lecture hall. "There's no natural light except from the corridor, and fluorescent tubes in a conventional hung-ceiling supply the artificial lighting, which is also characteristic of institutional interiors," she explains.

The space of the chapel is divided into two areas: a smaller room that serves as a meeting room, library for books, and place to keep the accessories needed in the rituals of various religions; and a larger room used for prayer.

"This [larger] room is conceived as a luminous space," Ponce de Leon adds. "The diaphanous lighting, a rhetorical feature of many religious architectures, is unexpected in this location--at the core of the building--and should clearly differentiate the chapel from other adjacent secular spaces."

In 2000, The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) recognized the Multi-Faith Spiritual Center with a prestigious Award of Merit, honoring lighting projects that display high aesthetic achievement backed by technical expertise. IALD received nearly 150 submissions from all over the world.

The interior restoration of Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., was so successful that it won its designers at Pittsburgh-based CelliFlynnBrennan Architects and Planners an Outstanding Lighting Award from the Electric League of Western Pennsylvania and the Illuminating Engineers Society. This church's unique, domed sanctuary--flanked on three sides by brilliant stained glass windows--was given a new life with its new lighting scheme and interior design.

 In the Office

"Lighting is installed so people can get their work done," says National Lighting Bureau (NLB) Chairman Carey Mendelsohn of Imperial Lighting Maintenance Co., in Chicago. "The quality of the lighting they're given affects how quickly they perform and the number of errors they make."

Mendelsohn cites a hypothetical example of a company with 200 employees and payroll and benefits expenses of $6 million a year.

"Assume two lighting systems that consume identical amount of energy: System A and System B. If System B is better designed--such that workers' typical tasks and angles of view are considered and that they can adjust lighting levels with ease--it's reasonable to assume that System B will let them perform three percent faster," Mendelsohn explains. "This means they would get done in seven hours and 46 minutes what would otherwise take eight hours, which translates to a savings of just under two minutes per hour. It might not sound like a lot, but the annualized value could be as much as $180,000 or more."

Ironically, most lighting system modification projects are initiated to save energy, not to boost productivity or reduce errors. "Focusing on energy overlooks why companies have lighting to begin with," says NLB Vice Chair Douglass Bailey of Lithonia Lighting in Conyers, Ga. "All too many owners and managers assume that 'light is light,' so light that costs less is better," he explains. "That's just not the case. Assumptions like that also downplay the importance of relying on a first-class lighting system designer."

John P. Bachner is communications director for the National Lighting Bureau Communications Office in Silver Spring, Md. For more information, call 301.587.9572 or log on to www.nlb.org.