Founded in the 1950s as a “Production Cooperative for the Belt and Metal Press Crafts Halle”, the company developed as “VEB Metalldrucker Halle” in the 1960s to become the leading East German manufacturer of lights made of light metal. Most of the lights were anonymous work designs based on models from Scandinavia, whose living culture also had a strong influence in the GDR. Since the 1970s, however, more and more designs have been created in close cooperation with the Burg Giebichenstein University of Applied Sciences. Until it was closed in 2003, several hundred different models were produced in large numbers, which were exported to many Western European countries even before German reunification. A large number of different pressure cores enabled a variety of models. In addition, there were countless possible variations by additively assembling, rotating, or recombining the same components. Another modification consisted of anodizing the aluminum surfaces in a copper color or painting them in color.
