"Milestones" - a small company chronicle

If, in this day and age, a family-run company can look back on 175 years of existence in the same place, this is highly admirable. Success is not hereditary. The history of the Remagen company is all the more proof of the respective individual entrepreneurial talent during now six generations.

 

Since the foundation of the company, each owner - attuned to the needs of his time, people as well as technical innovations - has managed and developed the business with love for the subject, competence and instinct for the new.

 

From 01.01.2021 Oliver and Patrick will take over the company in the then 6th generation from their father Heinrich Remagen, who has successfully continued the tradition until today.

The new home
for good light in Cologne

As of January 1, 2021, the sons Patrick and Oliver Remagen will take over responsibility in what will then be the sixth generation and will launch at a new location with a new concept.

While Oliver follows in his father's footsteps and takes over the management of the company and takes care of the operative business, his brother Patrick, as a trained banker and business graduate, is responsible for the area of finance and controlling. As an optimally coordinated team, they are looking forward to the new start together.

After saying goodbye to traditional retail, the future focus will be on planning and consulting on the topics of light, lighting and room quality and a significantly expanded range of services, including room acoustics, sustainability and 'Light & Health'.

With the new appearance, the credibility as a competence partner for commercial properties will increase significantly, because the team of architects, specialist engineers, master electricians and experienced lighting designers can concentrate on the property business in order to support commercial customers even more effectively and increasingly nationwide.

Big footprints and the explosion of lighting technology

Heinrich Remagen had studied business administration and tax law in Cologne, but this did not offer him any prospects in life. He often wondered whether the decision to join his father's company was the only one that would make him happy. His grandfather's legacy of throwing himself into a number of honorary offices and his father's legacy of being an imaginative and always active person were certainly a demanding life program in a traditional company that now had to be guided through increasingly stormy waters. There were then also grueling and critical times in which all the lessons that life has to teach had to be acquired. This culminated - after reaching the humility limit - in the beginning of the year 2010 in the insolvency, which was however already successfully fought through after 8 months. With the mentioned humility and the mentioned teachings also a new attitude towards life had grown, which could let go of the "old world" and dedicate itself gratefully to the forestation of the old tradition and the beginning of a soon necessary skinning. With the topic of light health Heinrich Remagen developed a valuable consulting basis in the expansion of the focus on health and well-being. This was also reflected in highly frequented lectures in the Remagen 'Campus', which soon became a forum for questions of socio-political developments, natural health and spiritual topics.

Phoenix from the ashes

Artur Remagen, son of Heinrich, returned from English captivity in Egypt to his hometown of Cologne in 1949 and dug out of the rubble of the bombed-out previous locations, including Zeppelinstrasse, the still usable lamp parts, cast brass models and semi-finished goods in order to restore them in his learned profession of girdler. With the modest compensation from his imprisonment, the proceeds from the sale of cigarettes brought from Egypt, and a small loan, he opened a retail store for lighting and decorative arts, which soon moved from Zeppelinstrasse 2 to Zeppelinstrasse 7. Here, in the absolute downtown commercial center, the business prospered. The news that the location was to be demolished and converted due to the planned expansion of the Hertie department store was a heavy blow, as no alternative location in a comparable location could be found. In the end, Artur decided out of necessity to move to the Zurich House under construction on the "schäl Sick" of the Neumarkt, which was not a walk-in location at the time and certainly represented an unassessable risk as a location. It all turned out well - the phoenix rose for the 2nd time ... and to this day this location has remained the domicile of our lighting tradition.

Now something big has to come along...

Heinrich Remagen, the third-generation owner of the company and grandfather and namesake of the current owner, is known to have been a very active man with many honorary posts and corresponding connections. Together with a partner, Artur Vollmacher, he established a lighting manufactory at the Neumarkt in Cologne with a branch office in Berlin, which produced custom lamps for private buyers, but also for many large projects such as UFA cinema palaces, and had its own large shade atelier. In addition to economic problems, there were probably also differences between the shareholders that accompanied this entrepreneurial phase. Unfortunately, there are no records from this period, as all company and private property fell victim to the bombs during the last war.

A tradition is founded

Gottfried's son Gerhard Remagen took over his father's business, and thus, according to good Cologne custom, a "tradition" was established - light entered the genetics of our family branch and took shape in 1882 in a store for lighting fixtures with the address Martinstraße 10, directly below the Gürzenich. In accordance with the times, here one found, in addition to luminous gas installations, above all an abundance of kerosene and candle luminaires. Gerhard also continued to practice his trade as a plumber.

Like a virgin to a child

The company founder Gottfried Remagen came "to the light" in 1842, literally "like the virgin to the child": when the cities began to make the nights safer with the first lighting in public spaces and thus put the night watchmen out of work, the problem arose as to who could safely manage the laying of gas lines underground that was necessary for this. That's when the guild of sheet metal workers or (water) pipe layers came into focus. Together with fellow craftsmen, the company founder and sheet metal worker (plumber) Gottfried Remagen also got into the business at that time. The founding date of 1845 goes back to his business idea of building gas pressure vessels for wealthy Cologne families, which enabled his newly acquired customers to operate soot-free (!) illuminating gas light sources in their homes - what an innovation. At the same time, he had won permanent customers who regularly bought the gas from him. The company had its domicile at Lintgasse 20-22.