Completed project
Messeturm: seventeen metres of height to fill with light
The tower by Helmut Jahn in Frankfurt — 257 metres, 63 storeys, the tallest in the European Union for years. In its atrium, refurbished by Matteo Thun & Partners, a catalogue fitting would simply have vanished.
The project in four lines
In an atrium seventeen metres high, an ordinary lamp is invisible
Our work at the Messeturm in Frankfurt — one of Europe's most recognisable towers — began as a problem of scale. In an architectural setting that large standard lighting would have disappeared: hung at seventeen metres, a normally sized pendant becomes a dot.
We were asked for pieces that were sculptures of light: structures able to hold a space with very high ceilings, and finishes fine enough to keep the Made in Italy character even at monumental scale.
We did not just supply light: we made the focal point of the interior architecture.
An elongated ring, because the atrium is not round
The shape is not a preference: it is a consequence. The Messeturm atrium has a long plan with curved glass fronts; a circular chandelier would have left both ends dark and looked small from every viewpoint.
The elongated ring follows the plan instead: from below it reads as a continuous line, from the galleries as a closed figure. It is the same object changing with where you stand — which in a seventeen-metre space is precisely the point.
An oval that size is not bought: it is bent
The frame is a brass profile as long as the whole fitting, and both ends are curved: no stock section comes with that radius. The profile is bent and worked back in the workshop until the joint can no longer be felt under a finger.
The same goes for the fluted glass: the ribs have to stay parallel where the glass curves, or the end reads as a fan instead of a surface. And the brass finish is settled on a physical sample before production starts: two batches out of different baths are visible from ten metres.
How a five-metre ring gets made
From the bent profile to the test bench: the photographs are from our workshop.
The bend you cannot buy
Both ends are curved, and the fluted glass has to curve with them: the ribs stay parallel or the end reads as a fan.
The glass after bending
The curved panel straight out of the kiln, resting on bubble wrap: this is where you see whether the ribs held.
Where brass meets glass
The joint between profile and glass is the first thing you look at from below: it is worked back by hand until you cannot feel it under a finger.
The frame before the glass
The complete frame in the workshop: at this point it is still a structure, and it is checked flat before a single panel goes in.
The finish is settled on a sample
Two batches from two different baths are visible from ten metres: the brass tone is fixed on a physical sample before production starts.
Lit in the workshop, not on site
The fitting is assembled, wired and tested on the bench: a fitting this long does not get adjusted hanging seventeen metres up.
An ambient rendering
⚠️ This is not a photograph: it is an ambient rendering of the fitting, brought to a photographic finish, that shows how the proportion reads in a double-height space.
When the space is out of scale, the fitting has to be drawn
Atriums, grand staircases, reception halls: send us the sections and the heights, and the lighting design comes back to you.