Precious

Thorvaldsen's collection of antique gemstones is among the largest in the world - Precious tells the story of the ancient gemstones and their significance for the rediscovery of antiquity, but above all the exhibition is about Thorvaldsen's personal relationship with them.

The exhibition is gently and poetically integrated into the antique collection's more than 170-year-old furniture. The concept for the lighting design of the exhibition supported this discrete yet poetic integration. The antique collection is illuminated through the uplights installed in each room providing indirect ambient light to the collection without a clear definition of a visual hierarchy.

For the Precious exhibition, the challenge consisted of creating a lighting design that could highlight, hint, and guide guests on where to look without creating permanent changes on the listed and protected building. Bertel, a custom-made modular and moveable fixture was developed in collaboration with the museum. The bespoke fixture was used on Precious in order to create a visual hierarchy distinguishing the items of the temporary exhibition without silencing the permanent ones.

Bertel was designed to be used for future temporary exhibitions, support the permanent one while revealing the architecture, or being used during events and workshops. Read more about it here.