Serien Lighting is a German lighting manufacturer. When Jean-Marc da Costa and Manfred Wolf first met as students, they could never have dreamed that they would one day illuminate a synagogue in the USA, design arguably the smallest LED wall lamp of its kind on the market and win numerous design awards. Da Costa and Wolf are not dreamers, but doers. That may not initially sound very romantic, but the strength of the Serien Lighting brand lies precisely in this attitude and in the courage to give each development the space it needs. Status, Reflex, Basis, Quadrat and Lift – the names of the first series already say a great deal about the duo’s understanding of design. Puristic, pragmatic, almost sober. You can discern the influence of the Bauhaus and De Stijl. An aesthetic that in times of postmodern pluralism and the highly ornamental design trends of the 1980s is downright provocative in its rationality and functionality. It was precisely with this that the two young designers impressed the design scene when they presented their series at the Cologne furniture store Martin Stoll parallel to the IMM Cologne in 1985. Barely six months later, 30 CI furniture stores stocked Serien Lighting and there were extensive articles on the young company to be found in the specialist press – it was their breakthrough.
