Vivitek enables technology to merge seamlessly with tradition at Swansea Guild Hall

With its stunning art-deco style and distinctive clock-tower design featuring the prow of a Viking longboat - as a nod to Sweyn Forkbeard, thought to be the founder of Swansea - the Swansea Guild Hall building has won many admirers over the years. Some of those had a different motivation for enthusing over the 82 year-old design classic; had World War 2 ended differently, the building’s future would have been very different from the one it enjoys today - in an occupied UK, the plan was for it to have served as a look-out post, thanks to the clear and stunning views it affords over the Irish Sea. That’s a very different role to the one the Grade One listed building plays today, as it is now home to both Swansea County Council and, more recently, a Vivitek D8800 projector.

One of the council’s main meeting rooms - which can seat up to 120 people for public and private gatherings - had a requirement for a larger LED screen in order to improve the image quality of presentations projected onto the screen. However, a skylight in the meeting room immediately above the screen meant that while the room was filled with natural daylight, the ambient light would compromise image quality if a larger LED screen was installed. This challenge was further compounded because the position of the council’s previous projector could not be altered.