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Designer: SPEIRS & MAJOR ASSOCIATES
Location: London, UK
As St Paul’s Cathedral prepares to celebrate its 300th anniversary, a 1.6m high lantern, manufactured by historic lighting specialists Dernier & Hamlyn, has been installed in the Cathedrals’ South Portico, which was originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
The design of the lantern was conceived by St Paul’s Cathedral’s surveyor to the fabric, Martin Stancliffe, who took his inspiration from another Dernier & Hamlyn lantern at The Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
He comments:
“The installation of this lantern is an important element of our aim to make the Southern entrance a welcoming access point for visitors to the Cathedral.”
The lantern was part of a wider scheme for the lighting of the South Entrance that was prepared by the Cathedral’s lighting designers Speirs and Major Associates. Dernier & Hamlyn worked closely with the design team to ensure that the lantern met both its aesthetic and functional objectives using a number of different lamp types. As a result the lantern not only illuminates the general area from ceramic metal halide downlighting but also gently uplights South Portico’s splendid dome from six ceramic metal halide aluminium reflector lamps. Each of the contemporary fittings has been carefully concealed within the body of the lantern such that the overall effect is one of warm, inviting light when approaching the Cathedral from Peter’s Hill.
Speirs and Major Associates principal Mark Major comments:
“Clearly it was important to have a lantern that was sensitive to the architecture of the portico. However, the careful design not only allows the integration of additional lighting to achieve the correct atmosphere, but also cleverly accommodates a technical solution which could otherwise have had a negative impact on the fabric of the Cathedral.”
