Parliament House embraces new LED lighting

The new LED lighting in Iceland’s Parliament House has been well received, according to Sverrir Jónsson, director of the Parliament’s office, mbl.is reports. Parliamentarians, staff and visitors first used the new lighting when Parliament reconvened after its summer recess on 8 September.

Modern LED lighting has been installed throughout the building. The quality of the light is better than that provided by the old fluorescent lamps, and the system was properly tested on the evening of 9 September, when Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir delivered her policy address followed by a debate.

The debate began shortly before 8pm, as daylight was beginning to fade.

Parliament House, located by Austurvöllur, was built in 1880 and 1881. Electricity was not installed in the building until decades later, probably in 1923, shortly after Reykjavík’s public electricity network was established through the Elliðaár power station.

Before electricity, the building was lit by oil lamps. It also lacked central heating, which was later installed when the circular section was built in 1908 and 1909.

The estimated year of electrification is based on two pieces of information compiled by parliamentary staff, Jónsson said. An appendix to the 1923 Parliamentary Journal records an electricity installation cost of 7,018.88 krónur under the parliamentary expenditure summary for that year. The cost is believed to have been related to electrifying Parliament House.

The 1923 issue of the Journal of the Association of Chartered Engineers in Iceland also records that electrical installation at the University of Iceland cost 3,500 krónur that year. It says electricity had also been installed in the building at Kirkjustræti 12, at a cost of 4,170.75 krónur.

Kirkjustræti 12 was built in 1848 by merchant Christian L. Møller, who soon sold it to Halldór Kr. Friðriksson. Parliament House was later built on the plot associated with that building. The property belonged to the state by 1923 and was used by the University of Iceland. It later became the headquarters of an organisation called Líkn. The building was moved to Árbæjarsafn in 1973.

The Elliðaár power station, the first hydropower plant to produce electricity for Reykjavík, began operating in the summer of 1921, after which a public electricity network began to be built in the city. Before then, some companies and individuals had installed their own small generators and run electrical lines to their buildings and, in some cases, nearby buildings.

There is no immediate evidence that either the university section or the parliamentary section of Parliament House had its own generator or received electricity from a generator in a neighbouring building.

The University of Iceland was founded in 1911 and began operating in Parliament House. The building was considered cramped after students arrived, according to the Parliament’s website. In 1912, the winter parliamentary session was abandoned and the session was moved to the summer, when the university was not operating.