Auckland’s much-loved War Memorial Museum has been given some LED ‘jewellery’ to brighten it up of an evening.

Montreal-based lighting design company Lightemotion has installed 400 LED fixtures using between 50 and 74 watts per unit, but it says the power they use accounts for only 1 per cent of the building’s annual energy consumption.

Both the outside of the building and its magnificent grand foyer have benefited from the lighting project  and Lightemotion founder François Roupinian says the project always had to be viable in terms of energy consumption.

He says beyond that aspect of the project, the most important aim was to deliver a design that was traditional yet adaptable, given the museum’s protected heritage status.

However, his company was still able to provide a lighting system that can readily be programmed to create the ambience for whichever event is being held there.

Part of this rejuvenation project was to also include a design for the Museum's Grand Foyer and its neo-colonial columns.

The columns have been illuminated to increase the dramatic effect of their sheer size, and Roupinian says the result has given the “rich and diverse” museum another dimension.