1980s Staff Floor Lamp

Materials: White powder coated aluminium oval base. Long flat white painted oval rod with a black built-in switch. White oval fabric lampshade. Black plastic parts. Bakelite E27 socket.

Height: 152 cm / 61.02”

Width: 60 cm / 15.74”

Base: 40 cm / 12.59”

Electricity: 3 bulbs E27, 3 x 100 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulb can be used, not a specific one preferred. It has a built-in dimmer and the light bulbs can be used separately.

Period: 1980s.

Designer: Staff Design.

Manufacturer: Staff & Schwarz Leuchtenwerke GMBH, Lemgo, Germany.

Model number: 120037 Lampshade: 054475

Other versions: This 1980s Staff floor lamp exists in slight variations and colours. It was also made as a table lamp.

This lamp won the iF Design Award 1984. Discipline: Product 

Staff

Staff Leuchten – Staff & Schwarz Leuchtenwerke (lighting plant) was founded in 1945 in Lemgo, (West) Germany by Alfred Staff (1908–1989) and Otto Schwarz (1902–1951). After the war they left the Soviet occupation zone and set up a small three-man business in Lemgo producing consumer goods in wood and metal, repair work and pesticide against the Colorado potato beetle. The location in Westphalia-Lippe was chosen deliberately: the area already had veneer and lighting manufacturers, which made it a natural base for a new lighting company.

In 1946 Staff produced its first wrought-iron lamps, followed by large orders for spa complexes in the region. After the death of Otto Schwarz in 1951,Alfred Staff took over all shares and shifted the focus from project lighting to serial production of innovative, design-oriented luminaires.

From the late 1950s onwards the company became one of Germany’s most decorated lighting manufacturers. Staff was among the first winners of the “Gute Industrieform” (today iF Design) awards at the Hanover Fair, and over the next three decades collected more than 200 design prizes. In the 1960s the firm built up an international sales network, introduced the Variolux electronic dimmer (1966) and launched Lite-Trac (1967), one of the first VDE-compliant track lighting systems, which helped to position Staff as a pioneer in architectural and technical lighting.

Staff collaborated with numerous designers, including Rolf Krüger, Motoko Ishii, Kazuo Motozawa, Arnold Berges, Gerhard Beigel, Alfred Kalthoff and others. Several Japanese designs originally created for Yamagiwa – such as Motozawa’s Saturno series – were marketed in Europe by Staff, while some Staff models were licensed to other brands. In the 1970s the company published a joint catalogue with Stilnovo, and lamps from Staff appeared in catalogues from Raak, the Netherlands, and the Danish Lyfa, among others.

In the early 1990s the Austrian Zumtobel Group gradually acquired the company: in 1993 it took a majority stake, and by 1994 owned 100% of the shares. The lighting activities were continued under the brand Zumtobel Staff, with the Staff name remaining in use until 2006. The Lemgo factory is still one of Zumtobel’s key production sites for spotlights and lighting systems.