Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes

Recognized in January 2022 by Japan's Convention Bureau and Tourism Office as having the ‘most beautiful nighttime panoramic view in the world,’ the medieval city of Toledo has been dedicated to architectural lighting for years, updating lighting at most of their landmarks to drive evening tourism.

One of the most emblematic buildings in Toledo is the Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, an Isabelline style Franciscan monastery built by the Catholic Monarchs from 1477 to 1504. Originally, the monastery had been lit with outdated HID (high pressure sodium and metal halide) lighting. Situated in a part of the city where fewer landmarks have been updated, the monastery lighting project provided an opportunity to extend Toledo’s modern lighting approach to that section of the city, while enhancing the building and honoring its heritage with a more colorful, flexible, dynamic, and energy-efficient lighting solution.

Toledo frequently uses Color Kinetics LED lighting products due to their quality, reliability, and innovative IntelliHue technology – an advanced approach to color mixing that enables the same luminaire to deliver perfectly accurate color and white light.

Approximately 80 Color Kinetics Burst Powercore gen3, IntelliHue, Blast Powercore, IntelliHue, ReachElite High Punch Powercore, IntelliHue, Vaya Flood, and ColorGraze IntelliHue, Powercore luminaires are mounted on the roof, façade, and on poles surrounding the building. A Pharos controller and Color Kinetics Data Enabler Pro power and data supplies complete the comprehensive system. All the city’s landmark lighting systems are seamlessly integrated with Interact Landmark so they can be controlled remotely.

Completed in January 2022, the monastery project delivered highly efficient, stunning, and more cohesive lighting within the panoramic view of Toledo. The monastery has become a new tourist attraction at night and a source of pride for Toledo residents.

"We enhanced the lighting of the building and closed the circle of landmarks lit in this part of the city." - Gerardo González Cantos, Municipal Engineer, Toledo City