The Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Social innovation through lighting: lighting a building in need to restore its role as a landmark of the city's social and cultural integration.

In order to regenerate and enhance the beauty of the Expiatory Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Leon and help it blend into the city nightscape, the state of Guanajuato decided to fund a lighting system and hold a competition for its design. The aim was to rediscover the building's material and immaterial beauty while conserving the city's historical, social and cultural heritage. The Temple of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of Leon's main attractions on account of its position, its architecture, its windows, its position in the urban context and its role as a visual landmark of the city's social and cultural integration. It has also helped drive the city's economic recovery in terms of tourism thanks to the extended visiting times offered by the new lighting system.

The project is based on Multiwoody spotlights that are used to light the vast surfaces of the main and side facades. Light, here, is a metaphor of divine light, so it rises and intensifies the higher it gets. At the end of the building, general lighting is integrated with the further contribution of iPro spotlights, positioned inside the balconies. The project has already been shortlisted in the high budget section of the DARC International Awards 2016 “Structures” category.
 

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• Year:
  2015
• Client:
  City of León, Guanajuato
• Lighting project:
  Gustavo Aviles / Fernando Vazquez
• Companies involved in the project:
  Constructora Eléctrica del Bajío Alcione
• Photographer:
  Fabian Garcilita Ruiz Velasco