Historical Buildings & Cultural Venues
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L&L Luce&Light
Royal Saltworks
In 1771, the French architect and town planner Claude Nicolas Ledoux,
one of the most important exponents of French and European
neoclassical architecture, was appointed superintendent of the
royal saltworks under the reign of Louis XV and given the task of
building a new works between the villages of Arc and Senans. After
his first project was rejected by the king, Ledoux proposed a set
of buildings arranged in a perfect double semicircle, with the east-
west diameter formed by the salt- production buildings. His design
was extremely rational, with a specific destination for each building
and area. Its semicircular shape, composed of geometric rows and
parterres, includes the Director’s House. Built at the centre of the
radiating paths, it illustrates the architect’s aim of giving the Saline
Royale a “pure shape like that of the natural course of the sun”. This
mix of architecture and landscaping was meticulously developed
with a balance and sense of proportion that has generated great
beauty.
This historical construction, studied in every school of architecture,
was taken in hand by the lighting designer Thierry Walger of Le Point
Lumineux in Besançon. He focused his efforts almost exclusively on
the architecture, leaving the large lawns and surrounding trees in a
perfect, natural penumbra that makes the geometric parterres and
concentric rows stand out even further.
Walger selected Tago 1.1, both with 29° optics and in the wall
grazing versions, to highlight the materials used by Ledoux and the
architectural details he created. Among these is the deep chiaroscuro
of the French architect’s distinctive columns that alternate cylindrical
and parallelepiped drums. Another is the Batiment des Gardes, with
its monumental portico of Doric columns and its artificial grotto,
which forms the entrance to the Saline Royale. To illuminate the
large walls of the ten buildings surrounding the Director's House, the
wall washer optics of Tago 1.1 and 1.3 were used.
The work carried out by Le Point Lumineux is a skilled design that
emphasises the architecture of this UNESCO heritage site, while
still enhancing the gardens with a perfect, and perfectly fascinating,
penumbra. Tago linear profiles with DALI-2 control answer the
studio’s intentions superbly thanks to their minimalist design,
the possibility of tilting the optics by ±20° and their LED sources’
functional anti-glare recessing.
Location
Arc-et-Senans, France
Application
Facades
Light planning
Le Point Lumineux (Thierry Walger)
Photography
Arnaud Rinuccini
Royal Saltworks
