REPORT. How do the illuminations in the Rouen Archives tower work?
By Valentin Lebosse
Published on
On the 24th floor of the tower of the Departmental Archives of Seine-Maritime, a Rouens, the long rows of shelves lined with cardboard boxes lead to a wall panel whose doors open onto a multitude of hollow concrete cubes. A real beehive, some cells of which contain ramps of light-emitting diodes (DEL or LED, for its most commonly used English abbreviation).
They emit colored bursts at regular intervals which occur in their white painted case. Seen from the outside, the whole makes up the Venus symbol (♀), posted Tuesday, March 8, 2022 as part of International Women’s Day.
7,776 light points
In all there is 648 LED bars distributed equally (324) on the north and south facades. With 12 diodes per ramp, the Archives tower has 7,776 light points ! A vast lighting device that allows the building to take on its light habits every evening since 2007.
Inaugurated in 1965, the second building from the top of its 89 meters (104 meters, antenna included) the spire of Notre-Dame de Rouen cathedral (151 meters). Overlooking the left bank of the Seine, its unmistakable silhouette serves as a landmark to easily find the Hôtel du Département nestled at its feet.
“Dynamic” lighting
Such a building could only integrate the project to highlight the bridges and buildings of Rouen, implemented by the City in the 2000s. “Initially, the tower was only to be lit in ‘agglo blue’ (color of the former Agglomeration of Rouen which became Métropole Rouen Normandie, Ed.)”, rewinds Vincent Boulard.
In office since 2006, the manager of the Operation department within the Deputy Directorate for Building, Development, Maintenance, Operation (Dabame, for short) has followed each stage of the installation, the work of the company Neo Light, specialized in highlighting heritage, specifies the Department on its website. For an initial cost of 700,000 euros.
Finally, it is a “dynamic” device that is deployed, allowing an infinity (or almost) of scenographies. But no question of displaying anything.
The lighting was installed to make the building disappear from an architectural point of view. Not for a promotional item.
The highlights follow monthly, thematic scenarios (displayed from Monday to Thursday) which give way to “blue agglo” every weekend, from Friday to Sunday. The illuminations also marry the great events of contemporary history. The blue-white-red flag, in tribute to the victims of the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, November 13, 2015. More recently, the blue and yellow of Ukraine, victim of a military attack by Russia.
Solidarity campaigns are also honoured: pink for the fight against breast cancer, a rainbow in support of the LGBT community or 3637, the Telethon number.
The program is established with the cabinet of the president of the department, according to the major causes to come.
“Good surprises”… and “misses”
However, making a proposal on paper and its final rendering coincide is not always easy. In the basement of the Hôtel du Département is the computer controlling all the light boxes connected by fiber optics. Vincent Boulard points to the small screen on which the evening illumination scrolls:
You have to imagine that the matchbox will turn into something 80 meters high. Sometimes we have good surprises. But what seems obvious to us here cannot be understood to oblige up there, we do not see obliging the same thing.
Thus, during European Week in May 2017, certain European Union flags parading on the Archives tower gave the technical teams a hard time. “Take Portugal: the red and green stripes were fine, but the dot in the middle was a miss. »
The consumption of “two irons”
If lighting management is assigned to Useful Lights, a service provider located near Nantes (loire Atlantique), it is indeed Vincent Boulard’s team that maintains it. “Our job is to be ready to be able to provide the expected service: to make sure that the computers are running, to replace the LED bars that are malfunctioning…”
He and his colleagues thus spend most of their days on the stairs and elevators of the tower, where the last phone call they received leads them. A painstaking job, however, facilitated by the replacement, in 2021, of all the light boxes (at a cost of 380,000 euros). Previously, each was unique, identified by its vertical and lateral position. This made maintenance “hellish”. Especially when the spare part was missing in stock. Now, all ramps are, in a way, interchangeable.
They are given for a lifetime of “70,000 hours”. Or “20 years of use” for this equipment which does not fear much, except lightning. On the maintenance side, “a spray of spray and a polishing cloth from time to time, so that the whole thing stays clean”.
There remains, in these times of soaring energy prices, the question of consumption. It amounts to 4 Kw/h per facade, the equivalent of “two irons”, according to the Department. This amounts to 4.65 euros per hour.
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