Before Luceplan
In the years leading up to the foundation of LUCEPLAN, Riccardo Sarfatti consolidated his instinctive
entrepreneurial flair while working first with his father at ARTELUCE, the historic firm founded by Gino Sarfatti at the end of World War II, and later in collaboration with FLOS, the prestigious Brescia based company that took over Arteluce in the early 1970's.
Paolo Rizzatto, Ricardo Sarfatti and Sandi Severi, who had been together at the Politecnico University in Milan, founded Luceplan, concentration initially on the design and making of prestige interior lighting, they created a first product catalog derived from those special works.
From Neersen Castle to the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe in Germany to churches and theatres, Luceplan produced projects for particularly challenging and high quality situations and locations, thanks to the company's dealings with architect H. F. Hoffman of Cologne, who had been appointed by local councils to refurbish historic buildings to be converted to different uses.
While the Goldhill Center was being built in Singapore, the airports of Linate and and Malpensa, the Ferrovie Nord Railways in Milan, as a result of these experiences and the results achieved, Luceplan Lighting was now in a position to go onto the market as a manufacturer of series lamps.
In 1981 Rizzatto, Sandra Colbertaldo and Luceplan, by winning their first Compasso d'Oro prize, with D7 the first and most
innovative of the lamps produced by the company, helped to make the new business better known.
Alberto Meda joined the group of founder partners when he offered to create JACK, Media, and engineer expert in plastics and with a special knowledge of materials and technologies, established with Rizzatto a singular harmony of design that was stimulating to both and was to lead to numerous jointly signed success-story products.
The strong vocation for research led to the realization of Sistemino.
Combined with constant research and development of materials was a business awareness of investing even beyond the margins allowed by normally cautious financial management.
Luceplan in the 1980's produced a limited number of lamps that rejected any compromise with fashion and possessed innovative characteristics that would make them durable. A catalog of products was produced of which the only model currently in production is the D9. This has been updated in its production technology.
But with Berenice, a slender and lightweight, highly functional and beautifully elegant lamp, the founding product of an extensive range of
miniaturized sprung-arm lamps, the young company took a major industrial step forward into large series runs using state of the art technologies and a management strategically aimed at expansion.
Luminator was born that same year by great early twentieth century architect Luciano Baldessari.
Costanza, perhaps the company's most famous product worldwide, is the lamp that remains constant. In these technological times, it adopts the most usual way of creating light in the house, the lampshade. The classic image of a shade encloses a refined technology and the Costanza lampshade became the first of an infinite series of shades and diffusers in white or colored silk screened polycarbonate made in a large number of other companies across the world. It is interesting to recall that Costanza was only acclaimed after a few years. But since then it has been a
permanently huge success everywhere.
From the constant research and development of materials came the application of carbon fiber to manufacture the stem of a floor halogen lamp. This allows the particular lightness of a lamp like Lola. With this product Meda, Rizzatto and Luceplan Lighting won the second Compasso d'Oro Precisely in recognition of the lamps technological innovation.
Luceplan forged ahead by insisting on a clear idea of business in which design is not styling, that is to say not "added design", but rather the outcome of a continuous and coordinated exchange of
deferent company functions. In the projects which Luceplan puts into production, there
is a constant search for simplicity and the solution to complexity. The premises at Via Bellinzona, headquarters of the original form Artluce, had become too small.
Luceplan moved to via E.T. Moneta and continued to expand.
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