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Romania - Circus in motion

Built in 1961, the Bucharest State Circus Building, one of the largest circuses in Europe at that time, still hosts high quality artistic performances following the best Romanian tradition. After its foundation, it experienced a new bloom in the ‘60s not only in Romania but also abroad, exporting to all Europe a tradition of talented acrobats, jugglers, tightrope walkers, spectacular flying and dancing artists as well as magicians and clowns.

Declared a historic monument in 2010, the permanent State Circus is today the headquarters of the Globus Circus and hosts excellent performances put on by both local and touring circuses. With a capability of over 3,500 seating, the huge Circus building is located within a small park, close to a small decorative pond, and it is provided with a stable for the animals.

As part of a comprehensive renovation and rebranding plan involving the whole structure, a new lighting project was embraced by Globus Circus General Manager, Mr. Victor Coman. The official bidding was won by GRIVEN’s regional partner in Romania, Professional Sound Impact Ltd., represented by their project coordinator, Sorin Stanescu.

Due to the perfect symmetry of the construction, a typical architectural layout dating back to the ‘60s, the lighting concept was aimed at enhancing the main elements of the circular structure. The peculiar features of the building had to be revamped by the creation of appealing accents based on a balanced combination of light and shadows. As main distinctive element, the shell-shaped roof required a particular attention in order to revive in a glamorous manner the old-fashioned allure of this attraction.

According to the lighting scheme proposed by GRIVEN’s lighting designers on the base of the official requirements, 16 units of Powershine MK2 S in RGBW colour configuration were installed on each of the higher parts of the wavy roof in order to highlight its upper part with brilliant colours. 32 Zaphir RGW were used to enhance from both sides the semicircular protruding parts of the shell roof. 16 units of Jade 16 RGBW with spot optics were installed head down to give light to the walls recurring between the glass windows.

Owing to the harsh weather conditions in winter and the severe project requirements, all the installed units had to guarantee the capability of withstanding very low temperatures. The Polar Edition, available for a great number of GRIVEN’s luminaires, features an integrated de-icing system with electrically heated glass, which assures a comfortable functioning even in the utmost severe cold weather conditions.

The fine-tuning and light programming of the installation were supervised by Mirel Petcu, an experienced partner of Professional Sound Impact Ltd. for this kind of jobs.

Sorin Stanescu, project supervisor and coordinator at Professional Sound Impact Ltd., who had previously achieved important successes with GRIVEN in Romania, asserts: “This was more than a challenging project as we were working on a historical monument, a very important testament of Bucharest culture and tradition. Unfortunately, the architectural peculiarity of the construction has generated many technical limitations, which did not allow us the utmost design freedom. Moreover, the installation schedule was very tight, living no room for mistakes. But in the end, nothing matters except the final result, and I think that what we have achieved, in spite of the many obstacles, repay us for the hard job we did.”

With this project, the most complex in this moment in Romania, GRIVEN becomes the leader in Romanian architectural lighting projects, along with the successful and impressive installations at Ramada Hotel Pitesti and Sheraton Hotel Bucharest, which were conceived, developed, and very professionally coordinated, as usual, by Sorin Stanescu and Professional Sound Impact Ltd..

Credits:

Project coordinator: Sorin Stanescu, Professional Sound Impact Ltd.

Photos & filming: courtesy of Mr. Daniel Sbarcea

Products installed:

16x AL3700A PE Powershine MK2 S RGBW Spot Polar Edition

32x AL2350A PE Zaphir RGBW Spot Polar Edition

16x AL4050 NARWPE Jade16 RGBW Narrow Polar Edition

1x AL1424 Wall-TSC

1x AL1321 Infrared Remote Control