At a height of 107 meters, the Dôme des Invalides is the tallest church building in Paris and a shrine of some of France’s leading military figures, most notably the tomb of Napoleon, and it’s now the site of the AURA Invalides nighttime immersive experience with sound reinforcement delivered by a range of NEXO loudspeakers in a system design and install by France-based production specialist Novelty Group.
Built during the reign of Louis XIV in the 17th century, the architecture of ths iconic building with its six chapels is brought to life with AURA Invalides, in which visitors are immersed in orchestral music as the walls become a canvas for dynamic video projections and lighting effects.
The experience was designed by Moment Factory at the request of cultural operator Cultival and produced through a partnership with Musée de l’Armée, France’s national military museum. The NEXO loudspeakers are finished in a custom RAL color to match the stone walls of Les Invalides.
Eight clusters of four GEO M6 compact line array elements are wall-mounted close to the pillars at the entrances of the four corner chapels, with each cluster facing the opposing pillar. L18 subwoofers are mounted above each of the four corner arches, with a single GEO M620 at each corner firing into the dome to create a virtual source. Compact ID24s above each arch face the floor, with additional pairs of ID24s mounted above the Turenne and Vauban monuments in the two side chapels, and pairs of ID24s supplemented by an IDS110 sub in each of the four corner chapels.
“It’s a major achievement to install a powerful, discreet and coherent sound system in this extraordinary space with an enormous 14 second TR,” says Christophe Girres of the NEXO Engineering Support team, which provided support to Novelty Group on the project. “Both the GEO M6 and ID24 achieve high SPL with precise coverage from relatively small cabinets, and the facility to supply custom RAL colors certainly helped the system to ‘disappear’ in the historic setting of the Dôme des Invalides.”
