The 7 World Trade Center, constructed between 2002 and 2006, was the first major building completed in the redevelopment of New York City's World Trade Center site, and the first commercial office building in New York City to receive LEED certification (gold). MTR Columns (Selux) illuminate the building's central plaza. The lighting design incorporates "light-bending properties of prisms so that more light is distributed into optimal angles, resulting in "glare free' illumination." Sweetgum trees and boxwood shrubs are the landscape. At the center of the fountain is Jeff Koon's Balloon Flower sculpture of polished stainless steel.

Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Landscape Architects: David Childs, with Ken Smith and colleague Annie Weinmayr of Ken Smith Landscape Architect
Lighting Designer: Bernstein Lighting Design
Photo: Selux website: Brett Drury Architectural Photography.

Selux, a developer of architectural lighting, is celebrating 30 years of manufacturing in the U.S.

When Hermann Bansbach started the Semperlux (semper lux: "always light) company in Berlin in 1948, the city lay in ruins from the 363 allied air raids during WWII. (Note: On May 14, 2013, a 220-pound Russian-made aerial bomb dropped in 1945 was unearthed a couple yards from a train track leading into Berlin's main train station.) The city had little electricity. Bansbach brought Berliners affordable battery-powered lamps.

Semperlux became Selux, a company today with 500 employees spread across Europe, North America and Australia. Eight percent of company revenues come from outside Germany.