Trinity Lutheran Minnehaha Falls

When Trinity Lutheran Minnehaha Falls church in Minneapolis wanted to improve their service's video display support, they invited AVE to propose some options. Built in1960, this Edward Sövik designed 'modern' church has a bright interior with strong ambient daylight via floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides of the nave. Their conventional dual front projection system simply could not overcome this, leaving much to be desired in terms of brightness and contrast ratio.

For Trinity, a direct view LED panel display was obviously the preferred option. A 36 panel Thor AV system with 3.7mm dot pitch was proposed with processing provided by a Novastar VX4S-N. The 16:9 aspect ratio panels were configured in a 6x6 array, resulting in a display size of approximately 11.8 feet by 6.7 feet.

While Trinity wanted this single, large display to be mounted front and center in the altar area, they had a unique problem to overcome. The back wall is adorned with a beautifully varnished and elaborately carved wooden reredos screen. While they wanted the placement of the LED display to appear as if mounted on its surface, they did not want to drill into, cut, or in any way damage this altar decoration. AVE also hastened to explain that, regardless of how it might be accomplished, this fragile wooden decorative structure would in no way be capable of supporting1,000 pounds of LED panels!

The key to the solution was the regularly spaced vertical slots in the reredos. By fabricating and anchoring a framework to the block wall four feet behind the screen, extending through these slots, to support mounting brackets just above the surface, AVE was able to securely and safely support the display while leaving the impression that it was mounted directly on the reredos. The design of the support system was created by Larson Engineering of White Bear Lake and the result is impressive!