Dionys Ottl

"All the work stations in our offices in Berlin and Munich have Tolomeo Micros – in our company colour of green...

… we "presented" these lamps to ourselves when our office first opened in Berlin. There were 64 in total, if I haven't lost count. There are also Artemide lamps hanging from the office ceilings and - ah, yes: Artemide is also present in my home: as a Tolomeo desk lamp which I'd bought when I was still a student. I went with some fellow-students and budding architects specially to Bolzano, because you could buy the lamps more cheaply there. We were excited to find that in Italy, in perfectly ordinary electrical stores, there were also lovely design product such as Michele De Lucchi's Tolomeo among the cables, light switches and flush-mounted sockets. We were a bit nervous on the way back, because we'd taken a few orders from colleagues too and had to cross the border with 12 lamps in the boot, which would have required some explaining. We felt a bit like smugglers ..."