Barco : 52 Barco projectors to open Saudi Arabia’s iconic King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture

Promote cultural development
The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture is an initiative by Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom's major oil company. An amazing design by Snøhetta (the Norwegian architectural firm behind the impressive Oslo Opera House), the center aims to promote cultural development in the Kingdom. Anchored by a library with 200,000 pristine books, the building also has a cinema, a large auditorium, exhibition halls, a museum, and more. The prestigious project demanded a truly grand opening, so Saudi Aramco called in the help of Filmmaster MEA Events.
Unequalled light output Filmmaster teamed up with Visual Solutions to set up an awe-inspiring video projection mapping on the façade of the building. The AV expert chose Barco projection technology. 'Barco is a household name when it comes to groundbreaking video projection mapping,' said Visual Solutions' Jo Pauly. 'From previous international projects, we know that Barco's HDQs project images with the industry's sharpest colors and contrast, no matter the projection surface. Their light output is incredible, so we absolutely wanted to deploy the HDQ projectors to visualize the story upon the very face of the unique building that the Center is.' Visual Solutions used no fewer than 26 of our 40,000-lumen HDQ-2K40 projectors, in addition to 26 HDF-W30 units.
Projecting onto a unique surface To make sure they could quickly and easily set up, preview, align and manage the show, Visual Solutions suggested using d3 Technologies' pro range 4x4 VFC media servers. The whole projector setup was pre-visualized in d3 Technologies' production suite. 'Dirty Monitor' - a Belgian creative studio well-known for its 3D video mapping - created the show content: the video mapping will guide the audience through the King Abdulaziz Center and zoom in on the history of Saudi Arabia. The expectations are high: 'The building is made of rounded metal tubular structures. We expect a fantastic effect projecting onto that unique surface,' the project team concluded.