Budapest's Chain Bridge is 150 years old this year. GE Lighting has relit it to mark the anniversary. Electrical Contractor goes down the river.
Tierney Clark designed the Chain Bridge linking the towns of Buda and Pest in 1848. The chains swoop across the Danube, strung between four giant stone towers. It was a feat of engineering and a magnificent sight.
Today that sight has been enhanced by GE Lighting. The company, which has a major investment in the area through GE Lighting Tungsram, has relit the bridge to commemorate its 150th anniversary. Gabor Demszky, mayor of Budapest, and Mike Zafirovski, president and chief executive officer of GE Lighting Europe, unveiled the bridge on 19 June as the highlight of the Budapest festival.
The lighting scheme uses a mix of energy saving lamps and ceramic metal halide. GE used 260 ceramic metal halides to light the bridge and 1178 energy saving cfls to illuminate the chains. The new illuminations bring the bridge to life at night, picking out special details. Even the coat of arms is visible after dark.
All of the re-illumination work was carried out by GE between mid April and 18 June. This included renewing and replacing all cabling and fittings on the bridge and installing new products.
The energy consumption of the illuminations has been reduced by nearly 70% when compared to the old lighting scheme.
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