Five lighting brands that shaped the twentieth century

Behind every classic fixture is a story of people who believed light deserved to be designed as seriously as architecture. Here are five names anyone who loves beautiful spaces should know.

Louis Poulsen — Denmark, 1874

Starting as a seller of electrical supplies, Louis Poulsen became a legend on partnering with Poul Henningsen in the 1920s. The PH series, with multi-layered shades calculated mathematically so the bulb is invisible from any angle, arrived half a century before the term "anti-glare." The PH5 and Artichoke are still made almost in their original form after 70 years.

Flos — Italy, 1962

Flos was born in Brescia with a philosophy of bringing art into industrial production, tied to the Castiglioni brothers — creators of the Arco, the arching marble-based floor lamp that let you "hang" a light over the dining table without drilling the ceiling. Flos today belongs, with B&B Italia and Louis Poulsen, to a single high-end design group, yet each brand keeps its own language.

Artemide — Italy, 1960

If Flos is the art of light, Artemide is its humanism, with the manifesto "The Human Light." The Tizio (1972) — a counterbalanced desk lamp with no springs, conducting electricity through its own body without wires — sits in the permanent collection of MoMA New York.

Vibia — Spain, 1987 & Occhio — Germany, 1999

Two representatives of the new generation. Vibia from Barcelona brings a "design for darkness" mindset — slender traces of light like brushstrokes in space. Occhio from Munich pursues German mechanical perfection: a unified modular system for the whole house, controlled by a wave of the hand, finished down to every pivot. These are the two fastest-growing brands in Europe's high-end segment over the past decade.

A classic fixture does not age — it only becomes ever harder to replace.

Understanding a brand's story is not about vanity — it is about knowing what you pay for: decades of research into optics and materials, and a design proven by time. IDA Lighting advises on and supplies these ranges according to each project.