Zumtobel is an international manufacturer of lighting founded in Dornbirn, Austria, in 1950. The company partners with some of the best designers in the world to make beauty an integral part of its culture.

When I first visited Jürg Zumtobel in Austria I was knocked out by two things. First, the futuristic cube of their robotic warehouse, where machines race to select, assemble, and pack products. Second was the seven-story, lightless testing space filled with sensors for measuring the pattern of light for every fixture the company designs. Technicians can create diagrams that show the precise “footprints” of light as two-dimensional shapes so architects will know exactly how the light will behave.