Lumen Center

Lumen Center the classics of interior lighting

A historic and iconic design suitable for those who only love trendy light points

Lumen Center was founded in 1976 in the city of La-Fare-les-Oliviers, under the direction of Gilles Derain; a leading figure in contemporary French design. Derain was among the first scholars of the UAM - Union des Artistes Modernes, an artistic movement active between 1928 and 1958, which later merged into the international modern movement.

Gilles Derain

The Union des Artistes Modernes counted among its members designers and architects such as Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Franz Jourdain, Le Corbusier, Pierre Chareau, as well as the famous Jacques Adnet: considered one of the most brilliant interior designers of the twentieth century. Adnet distinguished himself by the use of materials such as glass and steel that emphasized functionality over ornamentation, rejecting the tradition of elite craftsmanship of the Société des Artistes-Décorateurs and the decorativism of Art Nouveau. In the first half of the 1920s, he worked in Paris with his twin brother Jean, for Maurice Dufrène at La Maîtrise, the atelier for applied arts of the department store Les Galeries Lafayette, opening their design studio, JJ Adnet. In 1927, with the support of Maurice Dufrène himself, he accepted the direction of the CAF - Compagnie des Arts Français, a position he held with great honors until its closure in 1960. During his thirty-year direction, Adnet brought together a large number of artists, ceramists, decorators and designers, who shared stylistic visions. Collaborations that included personalities such as Marc Chagall, René Gabriel, Francis Jourdain, Georges Jouve, Fernand Léger, Serge Mouille, Alexandre Noll and Charlotte Perriand: the Parisian workshop became an important creative melting pot, contributing to the vitality of the French decorative arts of the mid-twentieth century.

Jacques Adnet

After the Second World War, Adnet was invited to participate in the renowned Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in the 1947 edition, and again in 1948. His reputation earned him numerous commissions realized in the 1950s including noble villas, airports, ocean liners and consular palaces. When the CAF closed in 1960, Jacques Adnet became director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, a position he held until 1970. A few years later LUMEN CENTER was taken over by a Milanese entrepreneur. The collaboration with well-known French designers, including Jean-Michel Wilmotte, and the high quality of the products meant that the company quickly achieved a position in the Italian and international lighting scene. At the end of the 1990s, the company came into contact with Panasonic's European Design Center, VillaTosca Design, realizing an important interior design and lighting project for the Royal Pines Hotel in Urawa, Japan. The project is called Life River and still represents the technical-productive know-how of the company, as well as the ability to create tailor-made projects with great flexibility. Since then, the company has carried out many initiatives at an international level, such as experiments on synesthesia between light, color and sound, the use of alternative sources such as OLEDs and studies on the interaction between light and human metabolism. LUMEN CENTER was also a sponsor of the lighting of the food court of the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2015 and illuminates the important works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Titian, Raphael, Bruegel and Botticelli at the Veneranda Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan.