The new Bob Dylan Center serves as the primary public venue for The Bob Dylan Archive, a collection of over 100,000 items including handwritten manuscripts, notebooks and correspondence, films, videos, artwork, memorabilia, and original studio recordings. (Image 1)
Lighting for the Bob Dylan Center focuses on creating an immersive experience and celebrates items that were either previously owned or fabricated by Bob Dylan.
The Entry features an open, black metal screen, designed by Bob Dylan, which is defined in silhouette by back illumination of a full height poster in addition to subtle form-defining lighting from LED framing projectors (Image 2).
A compressed (slightly darker) vestibule functions as the entrance to the immersive gallery. This space features lighting projections on the walls which define the space volumetrically and well shielded PAR 30 LED track lights subtlety accentuate key elements of the exhibit such as the piano and music sheets (Image 3)
The “6 Eras” Gallery, houses a collection of different Bob Dylan musical timelines – their titles displayed on blue columns. A combination of 3 lighting layers is used in harmony to accentuate the displays: discrete framing projectors (front lighting cases and text), integral linear LED tape light (carefully curated to evenly illuminate cases that have a solid backdrop), and miniature small adjustable accent lights used only in backless cases to avoid glare. These lighting layers were extensively studied and mocked up to ensure the quality of lighting would be low glare, with minimal shadows, consistent light levels per curatorial standards, and well-balanced (Images 4 & 5).
A Jukebox (featuring a collection of records that influenced Dylan) is accented through track lights and indirect diffuse cove light in interactive studio “cabins” creates a relaxing and inviting environment for privately listening to records. (Image 6).
Surrounded by black metallic walls, a stair is dramatically illuminated from above to invite visitors to the second level. The track lighting is not easily perceivable from the main floor which makes this lighting layer discrete and surprising (Image 7).
When looking down the stairs, black and white prints located on the sidewalls are illuminated through bounced light coming from the wood steps in combination with residual field angle light from track heads. The high contrast of the prints and the black metallic walls was key for featuring this exhibit with almost no direct lighting (Image 8).
The second level is a combination of a rotating gallery and an archive wall. The archive wall displays an intrinsic collection of items. All lighting for this wall is integral to the shelves and serves a dual purpose as corridor lighting. Linear LED tape was primarily used, except in some instances, miniature adjustable mono-points help to tell a relevant story: either to illuminate a sack of unread fan letters fading to darkness, a stage tambourine, or a rock and roll jacket worn by Bob Dylan in his prime (Images 9 & 10).
