Audi 2006 Annual Report Download - page 33

The lighting factory
ERCO Leuchten GmbH, Lüdenscheid
The company sells “lighting as the fourth
dimension of architecture” all over the world
Consolidated revenue, 2005: EUR 140 million
Employees worldwide: over 1,000
Year founded: 1934
Glowing examples:
London’s City Hall (top)
and the Berlin Reichstag,
home of the German
parliament, are illuminated
by ERCO lighting.
PHOTOS: ERCO
31AUDI 2006 ANNUAL REPORT
It has illuminated the German
Reichstag, lit up the interior of the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and
helped Paris acquire a new landmark
at night. ERCO, “the lighting factory”,
highlights sophisticated buildings
throughout the entire world – in colla-
boration with the best architects and
lighting planners of our age.
The family-owned firm from the
Sauerland experienced one of those
“big bang” moments. It had of course
long been active in neighbouring Euro-
pean countries. But when ERCO won the
contract to illuminate the head offices
of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in
1983, the company found itself facing
an entirely new type of challenge. One
of the first questions was: should the
company buy a fax machine to help with
coordinating the project? “My father
finally agreed to the investment,” re-
calls third-generation ERCO director
Tim Henrik Maack with a wry smile. “But
he was convinced we would no longer
find any use for it once the project was
finished.”
In concentrating on architectural
lighting, the 1,000-employee company
has chosen a niche in which expanding
means going global. Meier’s Ara Pacis
in Rome, Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum
in Bilbao, Foster’s City Hall in London –
physical hardware to the service he was
able to provide. Today, ERCO offers cus-
tom lighting systems that can be con-
trolled variably via highly complex soft-
ware as part of a network – and are used
in museums, airports, hotels, shopping
centres, government buildings and
places of worship all over the world.
employees of the German lighting man-
ufacturer ERCO are now in action at
some of the most prestigious construc-
tion sites in the world. The company,
established in 1934 in Lüdenscheid, has
operations worldwide through more
than 60 subsidiaries, branches and
agencies. Sales employees in all major
cities nurture contacts with the main
firms of architects. They see themselves
above all as consultants: they assist the
architect and chief lighting planner with
the concept, and discuss requirements
and options. Ideally they will be able
to support a project from the very
first draft, throughout the construction
phase, and right up to subsequent con-
versions and renovations. Their area of
expertise is light, “the fourth dimension
of architecture”.
“We are selling a medium that makes
things visible but is not itself visible.
Our clients want to use light in order to
see, project something, work more ef-
fectively or relax. They consequently
present us with tasks for which we have
to find a solution,” explains Maack.
“Light, not luminaires” was the com-
pany philosophy formulated by his fa-
ther as long ago as the 1960s. He trans-
formed a manufacturer of kitchen lamps
into an expert partner for the profes-
sionals by turning the focus from the