Light as a connecting layer in the renewed Valkhof Museum
The renewed Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen opened its doors on 6 June 2026. Principal architect Ben van Berkel, who designed the original 1998 building, returned to lead its renovation retaining the undulating ceilings and central staircase while making the museum more transparent and energy-efficient.
Lighting designer Maarten Warmerdam of Spektor Licht joined the project in 2023. “The first step was to map out the users’ wishes and analyse how the museum could be used optimally, both now and in the future,” he says. As the project was run as a design & build assignment, the team liaised directly with contractor Berghege and installer Gabriels, testing design choices against feasibility from the outset.
A central challenge lay in the undulating slatted ceiling: the base lighting had to be fully integrated between the slats, invisible and free of shadows. A task that called for precise coordination of pendant height, fixture position and beam angle. Above the ceiling, a grid of track rails was installed, from which the pendant base fixtures hang, and to which accent lighting can be flexibly added for changing exhibitions.
For the display cases and objects, Warmerdam chose framing spots from CLS’s Topaz Series, which offers strong control over reflections and shadows. Walls received an even light wash, in some rooms using CLS’s latest wallwash fixtures, whose upper and lower beam cut-offs can be finely adjusted to avoid spill light, while objects were accentuated individually, creating a clear hierarchy between architecture and exhibition.
The choice for CLS followed the expansion of its portfolio with the Topaz Profile, Topaz Zoom and Jade Wallwash, which made it possible to solve all the museum’s object lighting within a single brand. Sustainability was a deciding factor throughout: rather than replace the museum’s existing CLS fixtures, the team, working with CLS and partner Lichtpunt, chose to extend their lifespan, fitting them with a track adapter and exchange the housing in black for reuse in the new layout.
The result is a scalable system, local control for museum accent lighting, control via Casambi for the general lighting, that binds architecture, exhibition and collection into a single whole. “We are proud of the end result,” says Warmerdam, “a lighting design that connects architecture, exhibition and collection, while offering enough flexibility to accommodate future changes with ease.”
