Technology meets art : the Wild & Wessel Lamp Factory in Berlin and the Wedgwood Entrepreneurial Model

Abstract

The subject of this article is the Wild & Wessel factory in Berlin, one of the foremost producers of kerosene lamps in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. The success of this factory was due in large part to its founding directors’ dual emphasis on art and technology: they hired well-known and respected contemporary artists to design and prototype their lamps, and spent large sums on research and development. This, and their emphasis on catering to an inclusive market with a range of low to high price points, on thoughtful merchandising and branding, and on streamlining production, put Emil Wild and Wilhelm Wessel in the footprint of Josiah Wedgwood, often seen as the pioneer of entrepreneurship.