The light frieze was designed to be an integral part of the architecture. It takes the stylistic element of a frieze, which has been used since antiquity to decorate and give order to buildings, and brings it into the digital age by translating it technologically and aesthetically. In this way, archaic power and urban networking come together to create a new kind of media facade.
For the new building of the Kunstmuseum Basel, the architects Christ & Gantenbein together with  the engineers and media designers at iart, have developed a light frieze that sublty enlivens the building's brick facade. The video below was filmed during the testing phase of the facade in spring 2016.

The facade of the new building for the Kunstmuseum Basel produces its effect through the symbiosis of stone and light: a three-metre-high frieze encircles the building at a height of twelve metres. Its narrow horizontal joints create a fine relief and are cast in shadow by the incident daylight. The light frieze uses this for artistic effect. White LEDs are set into the joints so they cannot be seen from the street yet precisely illuminate the specially formed grooves. Reflection on the light-coloured bricks of the frieze creates an indirect, diffused light that can be used to display both text and graphics.

The subtle way the frieze is enlivened by light allows the facade to change its character, seeming sometimes more and sometimes less transparent, and suggests diverse interactions between the building's interior and the surrounding urban space. During the day, the brightness of the illuminated joints corresponds to that of the ambient light outside. For the viewer, a powerfully poetic play of light and shadow emerges, which is fleeting and yet seems to be as solid as the masonry itself. As daylight fades, the frieze adapts to the new environmental conditions, becoming more radiant. It creates the illusion that the masonry is porous, as if it would enable someone outside to view into the building.

The light frieze spans across seven facade segments and has a total length of 115 metres. It comprises 40 horizontal joints with 1306 pixels each, which is thus equivalent to a total resolution of 1306 x 40 pixels. The spacing between the individual LEDs is 22 mm, and groups of four adjacent LEDs define each pixel. Sensors on the roof of the building determine the amount of light that falls on each of the individual segments of the facade in order to control the brightness of the LEDs.
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Architecture
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Light Frieze
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iart
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Client
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Construction and Transport Department of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, Städtebau & Architektur, Hochbauamt
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User
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Department of Presidential Affairs of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, Kunstmuseum Basel
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Typography
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Ludovic Balland
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Sound
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by Victor Moser.
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Christ & Gantenbein is an architecture practice. Founded in 1998 by Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the office employs a team of over 80 architects from 20 countries.

The firm‘s most prominent completed projects include the expansion and transformation of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich and the extension of the Kunstmuseum Basel, both cultural landmarks with a global reach.

In 2020, the office completed the multifunctional Lindt Home of Chocolate, a monumental yet versatile space for Lindt & Sprüngli in Zurich. Furthermore, C&G is working on a diverse range of projects across Europe. Among them are a social housing development in Paris, a versatile office building for Roche in Germany, the extension of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, and most recently, a housing and office building in the historic center of Hamburg. Underscoring the diversity of scale and program the office operates in, the Zurich University Hospital project, which is currently in development, will transform an entire district of Switzerland‘s most populous city, giving healthcare and medical research an unrivalled new home.

Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein graduated in the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in 1998, since then they have maintained a balance between their profession and academic involvement. After lectureships inter alia at the ETH Studio Basel (2000–2005), the HGK Basel (2002–2003), the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio (2004, 2006, 2009) and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (2008), they returned to the ETH Zurich (2010–2015). They currently teach at Harvard GSD.

After internationally acclaimed projects in London, Jalisco (Mexico) and Jinhua (China), their studio Christ & Gantenbein continues to cement its reputation at home and abroad with numerous museum concepts as well as a broad range of private and public commissions. Among the designs most recently realised stand out an extension to the Kunstmuseum Basel, the renovation of and extension to the Swiss National Museum in Zurich.

In the spring of 2019, Christ & Gantenbein presented the first monographic exhibition of their most iconic buildings in Japan with “The Last Act of Design”. The same year, the studio contributed pieces to “The Poetics of Reason” at the 5th edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale. In 2017 the practice was invited to contribute to the Chicago Architecture Biennale, while the previous year, it participated in the 15th Venice Biennale “Reporting from the Front”.

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