• museum architecture
• artworks illumination
• museum lighting
• visual perception

The thesis project deals with museum lighting and visual perception of artworks in museum settings. Many contemporary approaches to museum lighting are oriented towards the fulfilment of qualitative standards, in order to provide visitors with a well-lit space and visual comfort, but failing to consider that many architectural and lighting parameters have a huge impact on visitors’ visual perception of the artworks and the exhibition space. Furthermore, lighting design in art exhibitions seldom highlights the uniqueness of each artwork, but rather often settles on a dull and repetitive arrangement, which just comply with the limitation stated by the current legislation, but does not achieve a real enhancement of the artwork itself, its style, details and colors. This thesis project aims to investigate the factors affecting the lighting design of museum art exhibitions and draw some guidelines for achieving suitable ad satisfactory lighting arrangements for both the artworks and the viewers. The project is divided into three parts.
The first part involves a retrospective on museum architecture and museum lighting, focusing on the main factors affecting lighting and exhibition design in museums through multiple case studies and research projects.
The second part shows a psychophysical study on color perception performed at the Light & Lighting Laboratory of KU Leuven in Gent (Belgium). Some of the fundamental parameters of exhibition design were investigated – the correlated color temperature of the illumination, the background color and the colors of the paintings – through a psychophysical experiment and their impact on color perception and the overall appreciation of the lighting scenarios was analysed.
Lastly, the third part shows a project conducted at the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa (Italy). Multiple lighting arrangements were expressly designed for two artworks displayed at the museum, a panel painting and a sculpture, focusing on the contrast between the exhibits and their backgrounds. Afterwards, the various lighting configurations were assessed through a second psychophysical experiment, in order to determine the most pleasant and suitable solution.