About our client
The St. Marien church is the central Protestant church in Lübeck (Germany). It is a part of the World Heritage “Lübecker Altstadt”
Construction of the cathedral began in 1251. The result was a High Gothic basilica of enormous dimensions. St. Mary’s has the highest brick vault in the world at 38.5 metres. Its two towers are about 125 metres high.
There are 18 chapels of various designs attached to the two nave aisles.
PROBLEM TO SOLVE / TASK
A general conservation of the complete building and its historic stained-glass windows is planned for the next few years. Professional and contemporary conservation of historic stained glass windows requires continuous monitoring of the environmental conditions to which the sensitive glass is exposed.
On the basis of such environmental data, appropriate conservation concepts, conservation materials and future protection systems can be defined, so that these vitreous works of art can survive the next centuries, even in times of increasing climatic problems.
The consultants commissioned with the project had to select suitable temperature and humidity loggers that would enable to monitor the temperature of the stained glass surface as well as the temperature and humidity of the indoor environment.
Due to the limited access to the equipment, which is located at high altitude, the data must be transferred directly to the cloud and the battery life of the device should allow maintenance-free operation for at least five years. These benefits allow consultants and glass conservators to obtain reports without additional visits to the church and minimise the need for expensive battery replacements.
SOLUTION
The installation of the environmental conditions monitoring system was carried out by Dr. Ivo Rauch Art Consultancy – an independent consultant in the conservation and research of stained glass in a variety of contexts and countries.
For this, the company installed Efento’s NB-IoT data loggers on some of the historic windows of the medieval cathedral in Lübeck. Each of the devices is equipped with a SIM card that provides NB-IoT connectivity for 5 years and allows data transmission in most European countries.
The readings (two temperature channels and one humidity channel per monitoring unit) are transmitted directly to the Efento Cloud and stored in there. It is possible to access the live data at any time and generate reports on the selected periods.
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