A two-hectare 19th-century industrial complex in the heart of the Wola district, in western Warsaw, has been redesigned with a new urban look and reopened to the public. Before being destroyed in the second world war, the Norblin, Buch Brothers and T. Werner factories employed over one thousand people, producing plated metal and silver goods. Now the enormous premises consist of multifunctional buildings that house offices, shops, restaurants, cafés and a cinema, as well as a museum, where the original Norblin Factory machinery can be seen.

The project is the work of the PRC architectural practice, who wanted to maintain the layout of the former factories and conceived an urban complex where the individual buildings are connected by squares and internal and external passages, some covered and others open to the sky.

The lighting design, by Studio DL, sets out to evoke the factories’ 19th-century past in the museum spaces by using a colour palette in which the dominant warm amber is contrasted by a shift to a white light with a blue component to create rhythm and highlight the elements of industrial history on display. Neva 6 linear profiles, with dynamic white LED sources – amber, 4000K, 5000K – and in four different lengths, from 316 mm to 1758 mm, were installed with brackets on the museum’s load-bearing structures to illuminate the imposing 19th century machinery from above with 24°x46° elliptical optics. The profiles are fitted with honeycomb louvres to ensure excellent visual comfort and contribute to the designers’ aim of creating a unique atmosphere and visitor experience in the Norblin Factory.