“Simplicity is the keynote of all elegance,” wrote Coco Chanel, who knew a thing of two about fashion and style. Chanel’s elegance, the embodiment of endless beauty in a simple package, has been a watchword for all creatives, not just those involved in design. Mathematicians, scientists, and engineers have long described the best equations, formulas, and inventions as being “elegant.”
Following this tradition, Frédéric Fuentes made elegance his guiding principle when creating the lighting design for an event sponsored by the financial firm Monego at the baroque refractory of the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon.
“The client’s request was to enhance the place by creating a chic and corporate atmosphere, not a nightclub,” said Fuentes, Director of Event Service at EUROSONO. “The main idea that guided us was to create something elegant.”
To achieve this vision, Fuentes decided to light the spacious room in a palette dominated by various shades of blues and whites. “We used blue light on some lower elements and white/cyan for the upper spaces,” he explained. “This helped create the aura we were seeking.”
The result of this effort was an event space that was smart, graceful, and refined without being overstated, Aiding the design team in accomplishing this were 12 WELL Fit and six COLORado Panel Q40 projectors from CHAUVET Professional. Taken from EUROSONO’s extensive inventory of luminaires, these color-mixing units were positioned throughout the beautiful room, which is adorned with classic artwork.
“We relied on the WELL Fit units to make tight beams that dressed the room,” said Fuentes “For wash lights, we used the COLORado Panel Q40 which provided us with very beautiful solid colors.”
Being battery powered, the WELL Fit projectors fit nicely into the EUROSONO team’s goal of creating captivating looks while being unobtrusive with its lighting products. “We are committed to making discreet installations,” said Fuentes. “This is one of the reasons our customers call on us. We want the effect of our projectors to be felt throughout the space, but we do not want to draw attention to the units themselves.”
Toward this end, the team created the layout for the Monego event in the EUROSONO design office upstream rather than on site. “All the wiring was carefully planned and installed to minimize intrusion,” said Fuentes, who add that the actual encoding was done at the venue to ensure that the client was comfortable with the final result.
According to Fuentes, the development of compact and powerful LED fixtures like the WELL Fit and COLORado Panel Q40 make it easier for designers like him to create powerful looks while maintaining a low profile.
“The more technology advances, the more we manage to sublimate it discreetly,” he said. “We try to erase the technique so that the eyes are focused on the beauty of the place.”
In other words, “elegance!”
