ზუგდიდის საკათედრო ტაძარი.
განათების სამოქმედო გეგმა. Зугдидский собор Иверской иконы Божией Матери.
Дорожная карта освещения. Cathedral of the Iverian Theotokos, Zugdidi.
A Lighting Roadmap.

The four existing sodium fixtures are removed. Four new LED floodlights are installed on taller posts, partially screened within the existing hedge. The fixtures are fitted with glare shields that confine the beam upward toward the building.

A dedicated ultra-narrow spotlight is added for the Holy Cross at 55 meters. The west portico fixtures are replaced with warm sources — both the wrong color and the overlit condition are corrected simultaneously.

On color temperature

The concept is oriented toward 2700K as the baseline — warm, precise light in which the facade stone reads in its natural cream tone. The final choice will be made through a field test on the facade, together with the cathedral's rector and the project architect.

A ring of uplighting fixtures is installed at the base of the church walls — inground or surface-mounted with shields. These fixtures aim steeply upward at the wall face at close range, producing raking light that reveals the carved surface relief.

The difference between a floodlight at 40 meters and an uplight at 2 meters is not a matter of quantity — it is a matter of angle. What craftsmen built into the stone — depth, shadow, texture — becomes visible at night for the first time.

The drum is already lit — it is already noticeably brighter than the nave walls. Step 3 changes not whether the drum is visible, but how it is seen.

Today the drum receives a shallow-angle sodium wash from below. Its blind arcading, carved friezes, cornice system — all present, all invisible under flat illumination. The drum reads as a warm glowing cylinder. Its architecture does not read at all.

Compact spotlights are positioned on the platform at the base of the drum — small, dark-finished, invisible from the ground. Their purpose: reach the drum facets from close range, at the right angle. The result: blind arcading casts shadow, carved friezes read in relief, the cornice articulates clearly to the dome.

After Steps 1–3, the Cathedral is well and correctly lit. Step 4 adds shadow compensation between arm volumes and a soft mid-level wall wash.

This is a question of preference, not completion. A more modeled result (Steps 1–3) feels contemplative. A fuller result (Steps 1–4) feels abundant. Both are worthy of the building.

No two ornaments on the Cathedral's facades are the same. This was the architect's deliberate principle — every carved element is unique. The base lighting reveals the building's volume and vertical hierarchy. But the plastic richness of the facades — thousands of unique carved motifs — remains only suggested on ordinary evenings.

The festive register sets a different task: to find a lighting solution that reveals this sculptural depth to the fullest. Every ornamental motif, every relief archivolt, every carved column — in raking light, at the precise angle. Such lighting may be excessive for an ordinary evening. But at Christmas, at Pascha, on the feast of the Iverian Icon — the Cathedral should appear in all its magnificence.

The specific technical solution for this layer is a matter for dedicated design. The intention is set.

As the church itself reserves its greatest liturgical expression for the great feasts of the calendar.