Staff Opal Glass Flush Mount Or Wall Lamp
Materials: White plastic round ceiling mount. White painted Bakelite sockets. Embossed aluminium reflector. Porcelain terminal block. Big round white opal frosted glass disc used as lampshade.
Height: 10 cm / 3.93”
Width: ∅ 50 cm / 19.68”
Electricity: 3 x E27 bulbs, 3 x 60 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulbs can be used. Not a specific one preferred.
Period: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s – Mid-Century Modern.
Designer: The internal design team of Staff.
Manufacturer:Staff & Schwarz Leuchtenwerke GMBH, Lemgo, Germany.
Other versions: This Staff opal glass flush mount exists in several sizes. It was also made in a quadrangular form. This version is the biggest version.
Model numbers: 7007/7017/7057
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.
Links (external links open in a new window)
History of the company can be found here: 60 Years of Light from Lemgo – Zumtobel plant celebrates historic milestones















