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The Light Museum at Selux
A jour­ney in time into the world of elec­tric light­ing in Berlin

Over the years, Berlin has been respon­si­ble for more lights and lanterns than any other city world­wide. In 1882, the first per­ma­nent elec­tric street lights in the world were erected in Berlin. With the city in the midst of a phase where, due to its role both presently and his­tor­i­cally, it is seen as a major centre for inno­va­tion and recon­struc­tion in street light­ing and other fields, sen­si­bil­ity for the city’s his­tor­i­cal land­scape and respon­si­bil­ity for projects affect­ing its urban space in the future go hand-in-hand.

Since the 1980s, Selux has been devel­op­ing both faith­ful recon­struc­tions of his­toric lanterns and new designs, which have crit­i­cally trans­formed the ideas inher­ent in his­toric models into cre­ative, con­tem­po­rary styles. We at Selux are proud to be able to play such an active role in restor­ing the appear­ance of Berlin’s his­tor­i­cal centre in such a con­spic­u­ous manner.

Proof that his­tor­i­cal recon­struc­tions of lanterns are one of the strengths of Selux can be seen from, amongst others, the Hard­en­berg lanterns on the Kur­fürs­ten­damm and the Wit­zleben lanterns in Kreuzberg and the area around the Schloss Char­lot­ten­burg. Since 1998, Schup­mann lanterns can once again be found light­ing up the area in front of the Bran­den­burg Gate and Berlin’s grand boule­vard, Unter den Linden.

In devel­op­ing repli­cas of the orig­i­nal lanterns, care was taken at all times to ensure these looked both his­tor­i­cally authen­tic and met the high demands of modern light­ing tech­nol­ogy. Selux has decided to ded­i­cate an exhi­bi­tion to the his­tor­i­cal devel­op­ment of elec­tri­cal light­ing focus­ing espe­cially on Berlin. Inter­ested vis­i­tors will be able to view a large number of orig­i­nal his­tor­i­cal lumi­nar­ies from the period 1850 – 1914 as well as the clas­si­cal replica lanterns pro­duced by Selux. Amongst the attrac­tions on exhi­bi­tion will be an icon of indus­trial design — Peter Behrens’ mag­nif­i­cent econ­omy arc lamp (Spar­bo­gen­lampe). We will be delighted to be able to explain the work­ings of the elec­tric carbon arc lamp based on a demon­stra­tion of a fully-func­tion­ing 120-year-old arc lamp.

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