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City of Lyon receives national award for new tunnel lighting

On Monday 22 March 2021, the City of Lyon received the 3rd prize of the “Concours Lumières”, a national lighting award, for the illumination of a road tunnel. The “voûte Delandine” is a 90-metre underpass located beneath a major railway station in the city centre. It is transformed at night by a tangle of light evoking the rails above.

“Transforming an ordinary passageway into an elegant picture”

The Urban Lighting Department of the City of Lyon designed the lighting system of the “voûte Delandine” in 2019. City employees fitted a total of 42 iGuzzini Trick 360° with light blade effect, as well as 21 Lightscan projectors by Erco for the functional lighting. The resulting effect is a series of white bright lines, spaced 1.435 metres apart, like the rail tracks above.

The passageway is illuminated from nightfall until midnight during the week (1am during the weekends), and is then replaced by more sober, functional lighting until dawn.

According to the jury, the “voûte Delandine” was rewarded for “the aesthetics of this enhancement, which transforms this ordinary passageway into an elegant picture, while ensuring that safe lighting is maintained, day and night.”

A project in line with municipal objectives

Sylvain Godinot, Deputy Mayor in charge of Ecological Transition and Heritage, received the award on behalf of the City of Lyon. According to him, “this award ceremony was an opportunity to highlight the renewal of ISO 14001 certification for the city’s Urban Lighting Department. This approach is based on the principle of continuous improvement and, as a result, perpetual in-depth questioning of the environmental impact of its activities.”

The project, with its full LED lighting, falls in line with a major objective of the City: reducing electricity consumption (-44% since 2001) and achieving the objective set by the Kyoto Protocol three years ahead of schedule (-20% consumption in 2020 compared to 1990).

For Sylvain Godinot, “it is also a way of thinking about the renewal of our heritage by considering eco-design and limiting the impact of lighting while continuing to make the night pleasant for the city’s users.”

Celebrating achievements in illumination

The Concours Lumières® is a national competition organised since 1987 by SERCE, a specialized trade union, and Signify, a LUCI associated member. It celebrates permanent, freely accessible, and visible lighting projects, for a monument, urban or rural site, garden or landscape, whether historic or contemporary.

Press release of the Concours Lumières (in French): https://www.serce.fr/pdf/web/viewer.html?file=/fichiers/20200910171800_Palmares_Concours_Lumieres_2020_v0.pdf

Photo credits: Michel Djaoui

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