The Imperial War Museum’s Churchill War Rooms has been upgraded with a new display and technical system installed by White Light (WL).
Situated within the Churchill War Rooms is the interactive Churchill Museum, which tells the story of Winston Churchill’s life including his childhood, military career and two periods as prime minister.
IWM has added a new display to the Churchill Museum exploring Winston Churchill’s relationship with the Middle East. With the new display relying heavily on technical equipment, IWM approached WL to install a brand new technical system in ‘Churchill and the Middle East’, which was driven by a Pharos Controller.
The recent upgrade to the technical equipment was overseen by WL’s technical solutions engineer Rob Stallard and was programmed by WL’s systems design engineer Ian Davies. “In the Churchill and the Middle East display, there are two shows: the main show and another which is slightly shorter,” explained Stallard. “These are on a continuous loop for those in attendance. The technical equipment consists of three projectors, four BrightSign players, ETC Source Four Minis and an LSC Dimmer. Our brief was to provide a control system with the ability to programme all of this and allow the different technical elements to work holistically with one another.”
The WL team met with lighting designer Andrew Grant who also supplied several specified dimmers and fixtures. The team then made several site visits to become familiar with the space. Davies commented: “Knowing we had to provide a reliable control system for lighting and AV within the museum, it soon became clear that the Pharos LPC1 Controller would be the perfect solution.”
“We’ve used Pharos before on other projects so are fully aware of its capabilities,” stated Stallard. “My personal experience has been it is reliable, flexible and compact; which is ideal for a space as intimate as Churchill War Rooms. For this project, it was vital that we had some equipment that could integrate different disciplines which included lighting, audio and projection.”
WL programmed the entire system at its London base before visiting Churchill War Rooms where they installed the equipment. Davies explained: “We used the Pharos Designer software which allowed us to create logic and programming. For the lighting, we created three key switch positions (on/off/auto). These three modes were engraved into the programming meaning the Rooms were able to run whatever is most suitable for that particular day.”
Picture: IWM Churchill and the Middle East
