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Manufactory light from Germany and Switzerland.

With the Lichtdirigent we are starting something new: a lighting exhibition that shows not just lights, but an attitude. It is about manufactory lights from Germany and Switzerland, real craftsmanship you can see, feel and value for years.

Five selected manufactories, each with its own design language, its own history and its own character. Yet they all share one standard: high-quality materials, sustainable products and production carried out with responsibility and precision. No mass-produced goods, but lights that last.

Because light is more than function. Conducting light means shaping moods, stirring emotions, creating atmosphere, making architecture visible and accompanying people through their day, sometimes gently, sometimes powerfully, always deliberately. That is what the Lichtdirigent is about: not “more products”, but the right lighting effect for spaces, people and ideas.

In the exhibition you will find a hand-picked selection of special lights, combined with personal advice from an experienced lighting planner. A place that lives not from trends but from character, precision and real dedication. Here every project gets the attention it deserves: individual, personal and with a fine sense for the essentials. If you want to design light rather than just choose it, the Lichtdirigent is the right place for you.

From 24 to 29 October 2025, the fourth machwerkschau took place at the machwerkhaus köln in the Kalk district, as an integral part of the first Interior Design Days idd cologne 2025.

Under the motto “Design, Craft, Future”, more than 2,000 m² of exhibition space showed projects from light, interior, materials and urban production.

The idd cologne launched with an “urban-only” concept: design out of the classic trade fair hall and into the city, with locations such as the Design Post Köln and the machwerkhaus.

We exhibited in the Lichthalle of the machwerkschau, a special zone that highlights light as the interface between design, technology and urban production.

The machwerkschau #4 in October 2025 showed how design and production culture can be staged in the middle of the city rather than isolated in halls. In this setting less’n’more was ideally placed: a manufactory with local roots, a clear design standard and a sustainable approach. Its presence under the idd cologne umbrella shows how interior design can be understood today, not just as a product but as a process and a context.