300,000 years ago man used fire as a source of warmth and light. Camp fires - and later pinewood torches, oil and tallow lamps - brought light and life into the caves where no sunlight could penetrate.

The development of settlements away from the caves also brought light out into the open: in circa. 260BC the lighthouse of Alexandria sent out signals of light; there is evidence indicating street lighting in ancient Antioch dating back to 378AD.

Although they were just basic commodities, the vessels for liquid lamp fuels were not always purely utilitarian in design but also often had quite artistic forms. In 1783, these lamps underwent a massive improvement thanks to the invention of the ring burner. In the same year a process was discovered for extracting "coal gas" out of hard coal. The age of electrical lighting began in 1879 with the further development of the light bulb by Edison.

The design of lamps and luminaires has seen a dynamic development especially in recent decades. Modern technologies, new materials and new lens systems open up new possibilities for artificial lighting - while providing optimum economic efficiency and taking environmental issues into account.

The first attempts to create an electric light bulb in the 1930's used a carbon filament or carbonised bamboo fibre as a filament, under an evacuated glass jar.

On the 25th of July 1835 the Scotsman James Bowman Lindsay demonstrated a constant electrical light at a public meeting in Dundee. He boasted that he could "read a book at a distance of one and a half feet". Lindsay perfected the device to his own satisfaction, then turned his back on his invention however and directed his attentions to the problem of wireless telegraphy.

In 1893 it was proven in a patent litigation process that Heinrich Göbel had already invented the first electric light bulb in 1854.

Thomas Alva Edison improved the light bulb 25 years later, making it usable for lighting purposes and capable of being mass-produced. His light bulb consisted of a glass bulb, from which the air had been pumped out, and inside which there was a carbonised thread. It glowed brightly when the current from a battery flowed through it. Although it only shone for 40 hours, it superseded the gas lighting that was prevalent until then.

In 1860 the British physicist and chemist Joseph Wilson Swan also developed a light bulb. His design used a carbonised paper filament inside an evacuated glass jar. But it was not until 1878 that Swan succeeded in manufacturing a practically usable electric light bulb. His light bulbs featured a special lamp holder, the bayonet fixing Swan socket, which, in contrast to the threaded connections of the Edison light bulbs, did not work lose under vibration, e.g. in vehicles.

After their initial patent disputes, Edison and Swan settled their differences and went on to establish a jointly run firm in London in 1883.