The tomb was built in the first quarter of the 3rd Century B.C. for a Royal burial. The tomb was discovered inside a huge mound in the 1980s. An underground protective building was constructed over and around the tomb to allow access into it and to allow visitors to walk around the tomb building. There is a grand entrance in the side of the mound that leads into the underground protective building.
The tomb has three rooms. The most important is the Burial Chamber. This has wonderful architectural decorations and ten half human and half plant figures. It is extremely rare and in very good condition.
The original lighting just gave washes of light with unconsidered bright patches which did not show the wonderful figures.
Due to the unique historic architecture and value of the building, it was not allowed to fix any lighting equipment to the floor, walls or ceiling. Also, all lighting equipment had to be hidden from the view of visitors. The painting in the Burial Chamber is light sensitive, so the light level had to be kept low. This meant that the eyes of the visitors had to be dark adapted by gently reducing light levels in the other rooms that the visitors pass through first.
The lighting of the outside of the tomb building had made a lot of glare and spilled onto the protective building. The new lighting is focused onto the tomb and glare free. This lighting also highlights, with skimming light, the triangular carved signature symbols of the masons who built the tomb.
For inside the tomb building, Sutton Vane Associates designed a scheme that uses free standing light structures placed on the floor and hidden from the visitors. This solution satisfied the requirements of the brief. Each figure has its own softly-focused framing projector and a fill light from an opposite direction.
The supports for the luminaires were designed in sketch form so that the Bulgarian team could carry out their detail design and manufacture them in Bulgaria to give local input to the project, this was applauded by the client as it saved money, employed Bulgarians and was more ecological as it uses local fabrication.
The tomb is a UNESCO world heritage site. The project was funded by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. Credo Bonum, in Bulgaria, helpfully curated the display.
To keep costs down, only one visit to site was possible. So, the design was carried out without a visit to site. The one visit was by one Sutton Vane Associate’s designer at the end of the final stage to aim and focus the lighting.
The original lighting was switched. The newly installed lighting is dimmable and there is a scene setting system so the light levels can be set for whatever is happening in the tomb, whether it be the public visiting, maintenance work, cleaning or special events to show this fantastic architecture.
