Klaus-Jürgen Maack (1938-2019), former CEO of ERCO, presented an impressive speech for his product designer Alois Dworschak, who retired after having worked for ERCO for more than three decades.

Klaus-Jürgen Maack was born 1938 in Lüdenscheid. He studied as printing engineer in Stuttgart. From 1965 till 2003 he was managing director of ERCO. He introduced ERCO´s maxim “We sell light, not luminaries” and introduced a paradigm shift for the company. His book “ERCO Lichtfabrik” offers a comprehensive overview of his corporate design and product design approach. With his visionary management the company received numerous awards for graphic and product design. He was awarded with the “Bundespreis für Förderer des Designs”. Maack was also chairman of the board of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen.
Mr Maack started originally an apprenticeship as industrial management assistant in a printing press in Bremen and studied printing in Stuttgart. In 1963, he started to work at ERCO in Lüdenscheid. With leading product designers he introduced innovative luminaire programs. In the mid of the 1970s he initiated the collaboration with the graphic designer Otl Aicher for defining the corporated identity for ERCO as a basis for the visual communication. Projects like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Louvre in Paris or the Reichstag in Berlin are illuminated by ERCO.

Principles useful for thinking in light according to Klaus-Jürgen Maack:

1. Light is “the fourth dimension” of architecture. Light interprets spaces, makes them perceptible, makes it possible to experience them.
2. Light is invisible in the light path. Light is therefore a medium that is not visible, but makes visible.
3. Light includes shadow, semi-darkness and contrast to make space or objects an experience.
4. It takes many light sources to make a room appear dark, perhaps more than to make it uniformly bright.
5. The quality of perception and the quality of vision are the result of good lighting.
6. The prerequisite for good lighting is visual comfort, i.e. glare-free and reflection-free light.
7. Light on vertical surfaces is usually more important for perception than light on horizontal surfaces.
8. Seeing is the most important sense of perception before smelling, tasting, hearing and feeling.
9. Ambient luminescence, focal glow and play of brilliants is the basic structuring for luminaire development as well as for lighting design.
10. The luminaire is first and foremost a lighting instrument, a lighting tool for a specific application and not an aesthetic object.
11. The respective luminaire fashion may be good for the respective fashion of room decoration, but it probably solves lighting problems more by chance – not consciously.
12. Whoever illuminates a room must think in terms of light qualities and not in terms of beautiful forms.

Principles were published in the ERCO book “Lichtfabrik” in 1990.

Bettina Pelz, curator for light festivals, explains the difference in light festivals within Europe and in a global context. She discusses the developments in cities like Sydney, Singapore, Lyon, Eindhoven, Berlin and Lüdenscheid. About Bettina Pelz: Focus of her exhibition practice is light as material and media in contemporary art, integrated design and digital media. Since 1999, and since 2001 partly in cooperation with Tom Groll, she developed various exhibition formats. She lives in the German Ruhr Region.

Interview topics

• International Light Festivals
• Digital Media and Light Technology
• Work and Inspiration for Light Art
• Light Festivals

Read more about the curator: Bettina Pelz

Luoxi Hao is a leading expert in China. She worked on the masterplan for the Shanghai Expo 2010. Luoxi Hao is vice chairman of China Illuminating Engineering Society (CIES), as well as Shanghai Illuminating Engineering Society (SIES). She is director of architectural physics branch, Architectural Society of China. She leads the China Illuminating Engineering Journal as Vice Editor-in-chief.

• Lighting in Asia versus Europe
• The big lighting projects
• Media facades
• Future of lighting education
• Introduction to Vision and Perceptions
• Traditional lighting in China
• Sustainability and Lighting

William M.C. Lam (1924-2012) was president of the lighting design office Lam Partners Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received his Bacholor of Architecture degree from MIT in 1949. He has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and MIT and served as a lighting design consultant on more than 1500 projects. His numerous articles have been used as lighting texts in schools of architecture, design, and engineering all over the world. He is the author of the books “Perception and Lighting as Formgivers for Architecture” (McGraw-Hill, 1977) and “Sunlighting as Formgiver for Architecture” (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986) and published guidelines like “Approach to Design of the Luminous Environment” (State University Construction Fund, 1976). For “Architectural Record” he wrote articles like “Lighting for Architecture” (1963), “Lighting for Cities” (1965) and “North American office lighting over four decades” (1989). Some publication are available online at the website William M. C. Lam.

Interview

• Richard Kelly
• Communicating Lighting Concepts
• Lighting Washington Metro
• Lighting Streets
• Lighting Restaurants
• Decorative Lighting
• Energy-efficient lighting
• LED Lighting

The interview was done in 2007 in his home in Cambridge.