Luxo has been a prominent supplier of luminaires for over 70 years. The
company's founder Jac Jacobsen laid – in 1934 – the basis for a company that
today manufactures lighting solutions in three countries and has sales units
throughout Europe, the USA and Canada.
Jac Jacobsen started his business
importing textile machinery. After some years, the company also comprised three
other sectors; lighting, ventilation and Venetian blinds. Today, focus is given
to the lighting sector only, and this is the lighting story:
In 1936 Jac
Jacobsen received two crane-like spring balanced "monster" luminaires included
in a shipment of sewing machines from England. Supposedly, these luminaires were
sent to help operating the machines.
Being technically minded, Jac
Jacobsen took a fancy to the strange looking luminaires, and contacted the
supplier in England to get the distributorship for Norway. It was given on the
condition that he bought mechanical parts for 500 luminaires – a substantial
number at the time – and that he obtained product approval by the Norwegian
safety authorities.
Although the technical invention comprising the
luminaire arm was ingenious, the luminaire construction as a whole was primitive
and had to be improved a great deal by Jac Jacobsen before being approved and
presented to the market. He succeeded – and manufacturing started in Oslo in the
autumn of 1938. He derived the name LUXO from Latin - "I give light".
Jac
Jacobsen saw the great functional and timeless beauty of this luminaire, and he
successively obtained license to produce and market the product in all countries
outside the Commonwealth. Nearly 70 years later, the original version of the
Luxo architect luminaire, L-1, is still in production, and more than 25 million
(!) Luxo luminaires have been sold worldwide.
Jac Jacobsen lived to be 95
years old and was active in the company until his last days. Since 1998 Luxo is
a multinational company listed on the Oslo stock exchange, but the Jacobsen
family still holds shares.
After the stock exchange listing and the
acquitision of the Swedish producer "Svelux" Luxo was ensured a broader product
base, tailor made for the interior lighting market, resulting in considerable
growth opportunities and expansion.
Production plants:
Luxo Norge AS
Established in 1970, Luxo Norge AS is the largest production
unit in the Luxo Group, and it is organised according to the “just in time”
principle.
The Norwegian product line consists of ergonomic desk luminaires,
uplighters, illuminated magnifiers and medical examination and bed head
luminaires. These products are exported to all our sales units and distributors
worldwide.
In December 1992 Luxo ASA was certified in conformity with the ISO
9001 quality standard, and in 1998 we also achieved the ISO 14001
certification.
Luxo Sverige AB
Luxo Sverige AB is a modern
manufacturing operation that focuses on total lighting solutions for the
professional market. The production unit features great flexibility and
responsiveness to customer needs, combined with speedy order
delivery.
Luxo acquired Luxo Sverige AB (former Svelux AB) in July 2000
in order to realise the ambition of evolving into a substantial supplier of
total lighting solutions and to extend the product range.
Burton Medical
Products
J.A. Korengold founded Burton Medical Products, previously known as
Burton Manufacturing Company, in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He named this
company after his nephew, Burton Korengold.
Over the next 65 years, Burton
merged with a number of companies. By the end of 1981, Burton Medical Products
became Luxo ASA’s first U.S. medical acquisition. Luxo ASA now has a complete
lighting product line, which has enabled significant growth in Europe and other
international markets.
Over the last years Burton has introduced a
significant number of new medical lighting products into the U.S.: Bright
Spot-tm, CoolSpot-tm II, Outpatient®, Outpatient® Plus, Outpatient® II,
Fleximounts-tm and Fastrac-tm (for CoolSpot and Outpatient series), X-Ray
Viewer, Pearl-tm, Opal-tm, Burton Headlight, Halux-tm, Saturn-tm, Genesis® &
Genie-tm and Aim 100. The Outpatient luminaires are today used in more than 60%
of all examination rooms in USA. Regarding operating theatre lighting, we have
continuously improved our products and remained the leader in innovative,
aesthetic and reliable lights for the medical industry.
In June 1999 Burton
was certified in conformity with the ISO 9001 quality
standard.
http://www.burtonmedical.com