Designed to be an integral part of the architecture, the light frieze subtly enlivens the museum’s brick facade with words and graphic elements. Our idea was to take the stylistic element of a frieze, which has been used since antiquity to decorate and give order to buildings, and bring it into the digital age by translating it technologically and aesthetically. While the light frieze is fitted with LEDs, it does not give the impression of an LED display, but rather of a new medium. It is a medial membrane of the architecture, which can be used as a visual information flow from inside to outside.

The light frieze of the new building for the Kunstmuseum Basel produces its effect through the symbiosis of stone and light. The three-meter-high frieze encircles the building at a height of twelve meters. Its narrow joints are cast in shadow by the incident daylight, yet can be precisely lit by white LEDs. Reflection on the light-colored bricks of the frieze creates an indirect light that can be used to display both text and graphics. The frieze spans across seven facade segments and has a total length of 115 meters. It comprises 40 horizontal joints with 1306 pixels each, which is thus equivalent to a total resolution of 1306 x 40 pixels. Sensors on the roof of the building determine the amount of light that falls on each of the individual segments of the facade in order to adjust the luminance of the LEDs accordingly.

The light frieze shows that the desire for mediatization and the timelessness of architecture do not have to be in contradiction to each other. The subtle way the frieze is enlivened by light allows the facade to change its character, seeming sometimes more and sometimes less transparent, and suggests diverse interactions between the building's interior and the surrounding urban space. During the day, the brightness of the illuminated joints corresponds to that of the ambient light outside. For the viewer, a powerfully poetic play of light and shadow emerges, which is fleeting and yet seems to be as solid as the masonry itself. As daylight fades, the frieze adapts to the new environmental conditions, becoming more radiant. It creates the illusion that the masonry is porous, as if it would enable someone outside to view into the building.