800th anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod: architectural lighting will decorate the city

800 years anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod: hundreds of architects and designers, several kilometers of lighting equipment, dozens of installation teams and a year and a half of one lighting company’s life. Specialists from the lighting company Svet Expert will tell about how urban programs were developed and implemented, how the appearance of the city will change and how street and architectural lighting will decorate the facades and urban structures.

In August 2021, the capital of the Volga Federal District will celebrate its anniversary. One of the most picturesque, ancient and beautiful cities in Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, is celebrating its 800th anniversary. Preparation for the holiday is underway in all directions. Infrastructure programs aimed at developing and comprehensively improving the city’s territory have been organized: “Symbols800”, “Restoration800” and “Wednesday800”. Within the framework of the “Symbols800” program, it is planned to completely transform the key urban locations of Nizhny Novgorod: the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, the Switzerland Park, the Chkalov Stairs, etc. The “Restoration800” program plans to improve the cultural center and restore cultural heritage sites, and the “Wednesday800” program involves linking and combining important public spaces and attractions, local areas and territories of Nizhny Novgorod into unified conceptual urban spaces. The “Restoration800” program envisages the improvement of the cultural center and the restoration of cultural heritage sites, while the “Wednesday800” program intends to link and combine important public places and attractions, local zones and territories of Nizhny Novgorod into single conceptual urban spaces. Of course, such a section as urban lighting is one of the main tools of urban development. The specialists of Svet Expert have developed a separate direction for creating a lighting master plan aimed at urban lighting of key objects and streets of Nizhny Novgorod.

“Participating in the implementation of such a large-scale infrastructure and historically significant program is a great honor and pride for us,” says the General Director of Svet Expert. “We are the authors of the design solution for the front lighting of central streets, key attractions and structures of the city and the main massive Kanavinsky Bridge. For any lighting engineer, linking such different in design, style and functionality objects with a single lighting concept is a high skill. We understood the responsibility that the city placed on us. We could not make a mistake, and the difficulties and nuances that we encountered during the development of the project forced us to make important decisions quickly and efficiently.

The main goal we pursued was to give the city a new, bright, festive evening look, while preserving the historical style and features of classical architecture. We immersed ourselves in the atmosphere of Nizhny Novgorod, we began to look at it through the eyes of local residents, we fell in love with it, as they love their hometown: a stunning embankment with a riot of colors of the sunset sky, low-rise streets imbued with the spirit of the history of merchants, massive openwork bridges, connecting the two parts of the city, and, of course, the majestic Kremlin, towering and showing the power and strength of the royal Nizhny Novgorod - all this echoed in our hearts. We tried to transfer the careful attitude and respect for the city to the pages of our artistic concepts and construction drawings. The whole team worked on the project: a staff of the project department, a department of lighting architects, and now we have moved on to the next stage - the stage of implementing our conceived picture.”

"The main celebrations will take place on the central streets and the city embankment. Our task was not only to decorate the facades and modernize the street lighting, but also to create a comfortable, pleasant and safe pastime in the evening, “says the specialist of the project department of Svet Expert. - The center of all project solutions was the Kanavinsky bridge. This is the very first permanent bridge in Nizhny Novgorod with a complex arched structure. As a local point, it is viewed from all sides and forms the appearance of the city as a dominant. The concept of architectural lighting provides for accent dynamic lighting, highlighting the massive dimensions of the bridge structure. Each light point, using low-current control systems, is encoded and has its own program address. Architects of Svet Expert has developed several scenarios for light dynamic lighting: from smooth gradient overflows to sectional bright show content. The difficulties we encountered in the process of developing project documentation were mainly aimed at highlighting and providing additional power supply for the power-consuming system of several kilometers of lighting equipment. Such a design solution will solemnly emphasize the important object of the city and the central place of urban celebration.”

Today, specialists from Svet Expert have already released the project documentation for creating a unified lighting environment for Nizhny Novgorod and have begun construction and installation work. Today, tonnage freight trucks loaded with thousands of lights are crossing four hundred kilometers along the quiet Russian cities and villages, only for one of the most beautiful and regal cities in Russia to shine with its greatness with the onset of darkness. We will tell you about how work is progressing at the sites in the next article.