Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum

2011
Wyeth architects
Hamden, CT

6,500 GSF

Museums & Galleries
Education & Libraries

2014
IES National, Illumination Award of Merit

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, part of Quinnipiac University, is home to the world’s largest collection of visual art, artifacts and literature relating to An Gorta Mor (the Great Hunger), 1845-1852.  

In keeping with the museum’s somber subject, the lighting approach is both dramatic and subdued. At the Garden Level, a flexible low-wattage lighting solution accents framed artwork and small sculptures from pockets concealed in the low wood ceiling. 
At the upper level gallery, lines of track are tucked between the ceiling’s slatted wood fittings, equipped with LED fixtures that illuminate light-sensitive artworks mounted on the walls. Fixtures with narrow beam spreads, also mounted on the track, are targeted on the various sculptures and artifacts scattered throughout the space. Echoing the museum’s subdued nature, very little ambient lighting is present in the gallery, allowing the informative video displays a subtle presence in the space. 

To realize energy savings, the project was designed primarily with LED light sources and is significant as one of the first museums on the East Coast to do so.