In the early 1960s, Klaus Jürgen Maack joined a company that was making high-quality kitchen and bathroom lighting. The new man prophesied to a flabbergasted management the impending collapse of their business if they failed to change course. Thereupon they came up with new systems that soon conquered the then burgeoning market for architectural lighting solutions. The thinking behind Erco’s maxim “We sell light, not lights” marks an ingenious paradigm shift. The company has cultivated an intellectual relationship to its product in a similar way to, say, FSB or Wilkhahn. Erco’s rationalism ultimately has its roots in the Bauhaus and in Ulm. Otl Aicher, a co-founder of the Ulm Academy of Design, has long worked as a consultant to the company, having previously served Braun, Lufthansa and FSB. Erco’s communications style remains exemplary. Its soberly intelligent customer journal Lichtbericht has become an icon. Another aspect is the extraordinary continuity of its product
range. An expression of the carefully evolved corporate culture is the purpose-built production complex, called the Lichtfabrik (Light Factory), an architecturally acclaimed complex in Lüdenscheid. The company has developed into a specialist for complex lighting requirements. When star architect Richard Meier recently created his glass envelope and museum for the Ara Pacis (the first modern edifice in Rome’s historic centre for many years), he brought in the German high-end manufacturers. Another big project was lighting for the coal washing plant at the Zeche Zollverein mine complex in Essen, now a cultural centre. The industrial heritage site is a showcase for design and architectural excellence. Always internationally oriented, Erco has collaborated with creative minds like British designer Roy Fleetwood or the Dane Knud Holscher. And Italian Mario Bellini designed the extremely versatile modular spotlight family Eclipse, which evokes the appearance of a medium-format camera. But this genre of unadorned technoid beauty is nonetheless a peculiarly German contribution to world design. The sober light
machines find their iconographic reflection in the neutral blackwhite- grey of their maker’s corporate design.