Staff also produced the Kreuzaustern lamps for other companies. The Cross Oyster lamp appears in the Danish Lyfa catalogue in 1972 and has the name Hannover. Also BAG Turgi sold it, together with several other Staff lamps. It appears in their 1971 catalogue.

Rolf Krüger

Rolf Krüger is a graduate designer. From 1959 until 1960 he studied free and applied art at the Heinrich Zernack School in Berlin. In the period 1960-1964Krüger went to the Meisterschule für das Kunsthandwerk (master school for the arts and crafts), the Staatliche Werkkunstschule, today named UdK, were he studied graphic and product design.

From 1965 until 1982 he was executive officer in the product and fair design in the field of home lighting.

Since 1983 Rolf Krüger is a freelancer in product design in glass, metal, plastic, concrete and large-scale murals.

Rolf Krüger was awarded numerous times:

Design awards 1967-1993

The Gute Industrieform Hannover
LGA Center Form Stuttgart
1st Rosenthal Studio Prize
If- Design Award Hannover
Federal Award Good Form
Museum of Modern Art
Design Innovations NRW, Design Center
“Designed in Germany”: Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Boston
Design Plus, Frankfurt Trade Fair Ambiente
ARD / WDR report: Rolf Krüger glass design

Projects

1994 Surface Form Product: Sauerland Museum
1995 Painting and glass design: Rathaus Arnsberg
2004 pictures: Sculpture barn Varel
2005 Co-founder of the Arnsberg Design Forum
2008 Art Summer Arnsberg: Fantastic benches, 1st prize
2013 Ede Sörensen Foundation, Husum: Benches from drainpipes

Product selection by museums

2016 Landesmuseum Schleswig-Holstein, Schloss Gottorf Schleswig
2017 Museum Kunstpalast Dusseldorf
2018 New Collection, Design Museum Munich
2018 Kunstgewerbemuseum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

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.

Staff Cross Oyster Wall Lamp – 1977 Catalogue Picture