PRESS RELEASES 
WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE "THE GREATEST"
Exhibit Builder, September/October 2006
By Melody Finnemore
When visitors step into the Muhammad Ali Center, they have an opportunity to walk along side the larger-than-life boxing giant as his journey unfolds professionally and personally. The lighting program and effects that power the Center’s interactive exhibits allow visitors to experience what it’s like to be The Greatest.
Located in Louisville, KY, the 93,000 square foot, six-story Ali Center opened in November 2005. The $80 million project included a $10 million exhibit design and fabrication package with a $200,000 budget for the exhibit lighting and system programming. Formations Inc., Portland, OR, designed and produced the primary exhibit areas, which consist of approximately 24,000 square feet on the Center’s fourth and fifth levels. Craig Kerger, Formations’ president and design principal, said Ali and others involved in developing the Center intended it to be much more than a collection of artifacts.
Visitors begin their tour in the main entrance lobby on the second level. They proceed up a long single escalator where they arrive on the fifth level just outside the Orientation Theater. The main exhibit pavilions introduce visitors to the six core values of Ali’s life: respect, confidence, conviction, dedication, giving and spirituality. These pavilion structures, while each physically unique, are all comprised of strong flowing, organic shapes inspired by Ali. Sweeping wall-sized mural graphics, a bold color palette, dramatic lighting and powerful audio/visual programs work in harmony to immerse visitors in their emotional and compelling story.
At the far end of the fifth level visitors enter a two-story space nicknamed “The Torch” for its symbolic resemblance, as seen from outside the building, to the torch Ali used to light the Olympic flame at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Visitors can look over a railing and down onto the fourth level where a boxing ring serves as a giant video screen. The fourth level also offers exhibits that challenge visitors to be the greatest they can be. From here, visitors make their way back down to the lobby. Along the way, there are temporary exhibit galleries on the second and third levels.
Formations partnered with Craig Marquardt, award-winning lighting designer, owner of C.E. Marquardt Lighting Design, Damascus, OR, to design and install the exhibit lighting system. Marquardt said subliminal lighting plays a crucial role in the exhibits.
“First and foremost you need to be able to walk in, see and read the exhibit without being distracted by the lighting,” Marquardt said. “It’s complicated in the sense that the light levels have to be maintained in a perfect blend of illumination so it’s just enough light to see the exhibit but not so much that you’re aware of the pathways. It becomes a balance of being able to dim the light from one area to another, and we fine-tuned the dimmers to meet the specific needs of each area.
Joe Summers, Formations’ project manager, said the absence of illumination played a crucial role as well. “As important as is the lighting, the effective use of shadow to create a dramatic sense and the use of play between light and shadow was just as important. There’s a real sense of drama as you move within the space,” he said, noting some exhibit graphics were backlit and uncontrolled surface lighting would have caused them to look washed out.
Exhibit lighting throughout the facility falls into three categories: general exhibit illumination, directional illumination, and interactive or specialty lighting effects.
General Exhibit Illumination
A single circuit track system, by Lighting Services Inc. (LSI), Stony Point, NY, provides general exhibit lighting in the main galleries on the fourth and fifth levels as well as the temporary galleries on the second and third levels. LSI #290-00 series track heads were used throughout the facility. This PAR38 fixture supports a variety of accessories including barn doors, louvers, and hoods which are used to control the lit surface. The 290 is also available with an integral dimmer which allows further control of the light level at individual fixtures. Approximately 400 of these units were used throughout the galleries in combination with other exhibit lighting fixtures.
“LSI offers, in our opinion, the Rolls Royce of exhibit lighting products. We use it whenever possible because of its ease of maintenance and quality of accessories,” Kerger said.
After arriving on the fifth level, visitors make their way to the Orientation Theater, where they begin to learn about Ali’s life through a five-screen, multimedia presentation. This program, along with all A/V media for the exhibits, was produced by Cortina Productions Inc., McLean, VA. A/V hardware and systems integration for all exhibits was provided by Electrosonics Inc. A 6-channel Smart Pack dimmer, from ETC, Middleton, WI, was used in the Orientation Theater to control house lights that gradually step down as a safety measure so people aren’t caught in the aisles in the dark and can see if they have to leave the theater during the presentation. The house light system is comprised of traditional recessed down lights and louvered step lights zoned independently. Dual pre-set programming allows staff to override the primary lighting program in the event the theater is used for a secondary purpose, such as hosting a public speaker.
Perhaps one of the most visually striking features of the Center is “The Torch” which showcases Ali’s boxing career. The multimedia presentation incorporates film, lighting effects and graphic imagery to represent visitors with some of Ali’s greatest victories in the ring. Prompted by changes in the exhibit lighting and audio programs, visitors are drawn from the perimeter walls to the center railing where they can look down upon the boxing ring surface that serves as a projection surface for the media showpiece titled “The Greatest.”
“This was a case where, in order to get people to change their direction, you have to use the lighting to grab their attention. You can no longer be subliminal,” Marquardt said, noting lighting around the boxing area changes in a flash to pull people toward the center railing. “If you had done that in a slower fashion, it would never happen.”
An ETC 24-channel Unison Dimming Rack allowed Formations to control the exhibit lighting in this area along with two other exhibit areas simultaneously. Lighting in this area is primarily accomplished by the LSI 290 series fixtures on three zones, outfitted with pipe clamp mounts to secure them to an overhead elliptical ring of pipe. A separate zone on the dimmer pack controls ten period-style light fixtures mounted on four pieces of ladder truss in a square configuration intended to mimic the lighting historically hung above boxing rings on fight night.
Summers said one of his duties as Formations’ project manager involved working closely with the project’s architects, engineers, contractors and exhibit team to ensure house lighting was in synch with exhibit lighting and audio/visual systems throughout the facility. This was essential in the two-story “torch” structure, which also contains complex duct work, fire safety systems and other infrastructure.
Directional Illumination
A series of exhibits, titled Journeylines, offers the opportunity to explore Ali’s life through chronological , interactive exhibits. These exhibits are interconnected by an overhead element that is curved and flows like overlapping ribbons of light from station to station.
The panels consist of an open rigid frame that is covered in a blue translucent textured acrylic backlit by strategically placed LSI track lights and edgelit where the panels overlap by traditional fluorescent tube fixtures. The result is an illuminated overhead pathway that subliminally guides the visitor through the exhibits on the fifth level.
“It really became a very user-friendly area and accentuated light as another method of directional wayfinding,” Kerger said. In other areas, the LSI track system is used to create interconnecting pools of light on the floor to further aid visitors along their way.
Interactive and Specialty Lighting Effects
In the Spirituality pavilion, an ETC Source Four HID framing projector outfitted with a GAM SX4 loop drive projects a pattern onto a curved, woven, metal mesh screen to create the calming effect of falling water. Here visitors recline on chaise lounges and look up at a domed projection surface that features a program on Ali’s spiritual beliefs. Around the perimeter of this dome is a recessed cove awash with a blue glow emanating from hidden, flexible rope lights which circle the structure.
More ETC framing projectors, this time two of the Source Four Juniors, are used in the Conviction pavilion to project lyrics from songs reflecting the mood of the 1960s onto the floor from directly overhead. “The key to the success of these exhibits was subtle lighting that highlighted them without drawing public attention to the source of illumination,” Marquardt said.
A unique use of common equipment allows visitors to shadow box with Ali in an exhibit titled “Train With The Greatest.” Here visitors stand before a video projector which throws a silhouetted shadow of Ali’s likeness onto the wall. Ali’s shadow moves through the motions of shadow boxing for one minute while the visitor’s shadow is also cast against the wall facing Ali. The projector is mounted and aimed in a manner that both shadows appear larger than life on the wall and can be seen down the length of the main aisle on the fifth level. “By using light in an interactive form, the effect for everybody watching is that you’re fighting Ali,” Kerger said. “It’s a popular space that people enjoy very much.”
In addition, this exhibit features a life-sized, audio/visual program that allows visitors to see faint reflections of themselves throwing punches and doing the “Ali Shuffle” in a two-way mirror that features projected footage of Ali going through a training routine. Ali’s daughter, Laila, also a boxer, guides visitors through the three-minute program and offers tips on their technique. Carefully aimed and independently dimmed LSI track lights provide just the right amount of focused light to ensue visitor safety in this physically active area, a sense of one’s reflection in the two-way mirrors and legibility of instructional print graphics without diminishing the brightness of the video.
Formations’ work also involved the Lighting the Way Theater on the fourth level, which features an inspiring program of Ali carrying the Olympic torch during the 1996 opening ceremonies. The theater is shaped like a cat’s eye and boasts a 40’ wide screen and “touchable torches” that activate hidden pin spot lighting which illuminates each visitor. A camera then records their picture and incorporates their image on the screen in the show’s finale.
“It’s really a very emotional space as you walk through it, and it was very complicated in terms of lighting and control. It wasn’t just a matter of managing one system, but involved all of the individual controls.” Marquardt said, adding MR16 narrow point, sourced fixtures illuminate people at the touchable torches. “The room was relatively low lighting, so without a white light source it would have been very difficult to illuminate people enough to record and project them onto the screen. A lot of people worked very hard on programming to perfect that system.”
Summers said multi-colored LED’s imbedded in the torches creates the appearance of a glow and flicker that attracts visitors to touch them. A black, stretch ceiling with fiber optics creates the effect of stars in a nighttime sky. “By themselves none of these techniques are really unique, but by taking the technology that is available and bringing all of these elements together the sum creates something that is very special,” Summers said.
Kerger said designing the lighting program for the Ali Center was challenging and rewarding in that it needed to meet a broad array of goals. “You can imagine that the lighting of floor to ceiling graphics without adversely affecting the image quality of adjacent video programs and maintaining ADA accessibility in an interactive setting – all while never losing site of Ali’s dramatic story – was a tall order,” he said.
Melody Finnemore is a freelance writer based in Portland, OR.
All photos © Moberly Photography Inc.