Ingo Maurer

Ingo Maurer – a success story since the mid-1960s

Since the mid-1960s, Ingo Maurer and his eponymous company have designed and produced lights and lighting systems. More than 70 people work together to create objects that combine artistic expression with functional elegance. Ingo Maurer products combine attention to detail with craftsmanship and a great deal of handwork.

The success story of designer Ingo Maurer and his company began in 1965. That year, he designed his first lights for a client and attended his first trade fair. A year later, Ingo Maurer was running a one-man business with temporary helpers in a basement. His first light, "Bulb", was produced as a small series at the time. It soon attracted interest, buyers and imitators in Germany and abroad, and before long it was added to the Design Collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

In the years that followed, Ingo Maurer's collection and customer base grew. Traditional lights with a lamp base and shade created the financial basis for producing "modern" lights. In 1968, Ingo Maurer employed three people and presented his own stand at a trade fair in Italy for the first time. The first press reports followed. Between 1969 and 1972, the number of employees rose to 12.

In 1979, Ingo Maurer celebrated the 100th anniversary of the light bulb with his "Thomas Alva Edison" light. By then, the company employed 25 people, plus temporary staff and homeworkers.

After entering low-voltage technology with "Ilios" in 1983, Ingo Maurer presented the low-voltage system "YaYaHo" in Milan in Italy in September 1984. At that time, the company was fighting for survival, as investment and development costs had used up its financial reserves. However, the response to "YaYaHo" exceeded all expectations, and the company had to expand in every area. A year later, the workload around "YaYaHo" was almost too much for the remaining 12 permanent employees and temporary staff.

As a result, the company experienced a new upturn. Exhibitions followed in Paris (France), Rome (Italy), Los Angeles (USA), Helsinki (Finland), Barcelona and Madrid (Spain). The electronic Touch Tronic transformer developed by the company also made new concepts possible: the lights could be switched on and off and dimmed by touch.

In 1989, Ingo Maurer showed non-commercial works for the first time at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. By then, the company had grown again to 36 employees, supported by ten part-time helpers.

In 1990, the projects department began its work. In the years that followed, new designs and ideas were added to the existing collection on a regular basis, and the work increasingly moved in an artistic direction. In 1998, after several years of development, the new series "The MaMo Nouchies" was presented.

From 1999, Ingo Maurer and his team also experimented with LED technology. In the spring of that year, the shop and showroom opened in New York, USA.