Barco enters architectural market with first permanent LED installation on building façade
Kuurne, Belgium, 12 May, 2006 - Barco, a pioneer in creative LED technology, is delighted to announce the first permanent LED installation on a building façade. The Uniqa building in Vienna, Austria stands at an impressive 20 floors and has been fitted with 45,000 LED blocks covering a staggering 7000sqm. The LED blocks, attached to profiles in between the window panes, bring the building to life and make it one of the most striking towers in Vienna.
Designed by lighting designers ‘Licht Kunst Licht’, the installation is a fantastic example of how LED can be used creatively to transform buildings and identify them as distinctive landmarks. ‘Licht Kunst Licht’ understand lighting design as an integral part of architecture by emphasizing its effect on spatial quality as opposed to stressing the formal lighting fixture design. At night the tailor made content for UNIQA brings the building to life and ensures UNIQA is noticed by everyone in Vienna. 
The LED solution comprises of Barco’s MIPIX and has been fixed in a special housing which is IP65 certified. There are 2800 sections of MIPIX each of 1.3 meters long, placed end to end in pairs - making 1400 separate sections each totaling 2.6 meters long.
Barco was chosen for this project not only for its innovative product design and product quality but also for its ability to complete the installation in just 5 weeks. The installation posed a range of unique challenges for the Barco team to overcome. No cables were allowed to run into the building from the outside except via the roof. Coupled with the extremely short time scales for the installation, this made for an unusual scenario for the team but one that was overcome to the customer’s satisfaction. Barco prides itself on meeting and exceeding customer needs as it did at UNIQA.
The content for the LED is a specially designed video file written for UNIQA by ‘Licht Kunst Licht’.
"The UNIQA tower is a new landmark for the city of Vienna. Its distinctive silhouette is an architectural landmark located at the start of the famous Ringstraβe, and it creates a link from Vienna´s city centre to the historically important Praterstraße. The unique LED installation supports the expressive architecture of UNIQA headquarters. The conceptive world of pictures with abstract and specific motives brings additional life to glass cladding of UNIQA tower," says Ernst Morgenbesser, project manager UNIQA Tower.
Stephan Paridaen, President of Barco’s Media and Entertainment division stated: “This is truly a fantastic and unique installation. The UNIQA building marks the beginning of the latest evolution in LED technology, from video walls to creative architectural visual design.”
About UNIQA insurance:
Under the umbrella of the listed company, UNIQA Versicherungen AG, UNIQA operates more than 70 group companies and has more than 12,500 employees in Austria and fifteen Central and Eastern European countries - Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Poland, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine as well as Serbia - in all classes of insurance business and all sales channels. In Austria UNIQA is the largest insurance group.
About Barco
Barco, a global technology company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
For fiscal year 2005, Barco posted net sales of euro 712.0 million.
Barco’s ordinary shares are listed on the Brussels/Euronext stock exchange. Barco is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company. Share information may be accessed on Bloomberg under the symbol BAR BB and on Reuters under BARBt.BR.
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