About Us
Pollice Illuminazione
Marco pollice: a family tradition since 1908
If we talk about Thumb Lighting, we cannot do so apart from the charismatic figure of its Art Director, Marco Pollice and the traces that remain in him of the tradition of a great family that has made light a subject of study, application and culture.
From Milan, specializing at the Milan Polytechnic in lighting engineering and in film directing in New York, marco is heir to three generations of light connoisseurs who have spent their lives since 1908 lighting with care and wisdom, combining tradition and innovation, and whose projects of excellence include the Duomo in Milan, the Autostrada del Sole, the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the Flaminio Stadium in Rome, and the seafront in Nice.
Extraordinary events imprinted as memory in marco pollice’s DNA and that make him today a passionate connoisseur of light and its most sophisticated technologies.
A wisdom made available to a larger vision that rethinks the world of lighting design in view of a new ethical and cultural Renaissance for which light becomes a guarantor of the greatest value: our health. New parameters quantitative and qualitative of light will have to be in fact, respected, to ensure the proper functioning of our biological clock, regulator of circadian rhythms and to protect the environment according to an eco-sustainable innovation already underway.
read more at: https://polliceilluminazione.it/clever-light/
In 1998 he was among the founding members of APIL, Association of Lighting Professionals, and since 2007 he has been a Board Member of Aidi and a member of CIE. He still collaborates with the editorial staff of Luce magazine, writes articles for industry publications, gives workshops and lectures to students at the Polytechnic, and participates in conferences in Italy and abroad in a constant effort to spread knowledge around the subject of light and LED technology.
“mission: create healthy environments through valuable projects”
our history
THE FOUNDING OF THE COMPANY (1908-1938)
Pollice Illuminazione was born with Vincenzo Pollice, a pioneer in the field of lighting who in 1908 was experimenting and investigating, ahead of his time in a technology yet to be invented.
His grandson, Ugo Pollice, also of Apulian origin, was born in Taranto in 1901 but soon moved north with his family.
He attended the Liceo Classico and then the Politecnico di Milano, graduating in engineering in 1923, at only 22 years old. The following year he served an apprenticeship at the “Alfieri e Colli” firm, now defunct, and gained his first work experience there. 1925 is the year of his debut as an executive. He went to his native Apulia and opened a technical representative office in Bari. Two years later he also extends his presence to Rome, with another office. There he took on a very important representation, that of sole agent for central and southern Italy for a company involved in the construction of rational lighting fixtures. It is German and based in Leipzig, and is called “Koerting & Mathisen.” Its cooperation continued effectively in the following years, and the Germanic firm’s products were distributed with considerable success. So in 1929 after only two years, Engineer Pollice is called to Milan to head the General Representative office for all of Italy. A period then opened before him that offered him ample opportunity to deepen his knowledge in the field of lighting science, both from the technological aspect and from the applicative and commercial aspect.
The history of the Thumbs in the evolution oflighting
in Milan and around the world since 1908
pollice in the history
pollice illuminazione today
A new vision of tomorrow.
today thumb lighting is a lighting consulting and lighting design center, a research and development laboratory in the field of innovation of natural and artificial light architectures for human health and the creation of healthy environments. The attention paid to the correlation between light and health in the onset of oncological diseases, depression, sleep and eating disorders has necessitated a paradigm shift in the way of lighting starting with homes and workplaces. From this need it was possible to conceive and patent Clever Light a new lighting system with Well certification, revolutionary in the field of future light architecture regulations. It is a team effort, born out of collaboration with BeSapiens oncologists and chronobiologists, suggesting active cooperation between different figures: architects, landscape architects, light practitioners, psychologists, physicians, and transdisciplinary between experiences, research fields and languages that usually do not interact and communicate with each other: arts and science, oncology and lighting design, color therapy and architecture, technology and philosophy. The lighting design of tomorrow starts from the need to find a new relationship between human beings and the environment, with the awareness that, in a complex and interconnected world, when a balance is altered, everything must somehow readjust, starting with our daily space and the biological cycles that regulate our lives. In a holistic perspective, the new lighting design embraces, in fact, a broader field of attention around the human being by taking into consideration every cognitive element and 17 sensory channels, among them the sense of time, balance, sensations of pain and pleasure, the sense of acceptance, thermoreception and proprioception.
The constant updating of light sources and the continuous study of the latest technologies related to light and vision, also allow us, to use the best of what the market offers, personally intervening to modify with specific optics and materials where necessary and to design, to measure, light contract fixtures with an architectural line and a decorative one of the highest quality and design, handcrafted in our workshops.
We believe that protecting health and emphasizing beauty are the elements today, as never before, that we need. Then making beauty environmentally sustainable is another important challenge of our time.
the philosophy
A conversation between intelligent light, health and life
Healthy light originated in 2000 as a design dedicated to the relationship between light and health and is now merged into the new Clever light project.
The discovery of the existence within our brains of the molecular mechanism that controls the circadian cycle (Nobel Prize 2017) has vindicated the research that, from time immemorial, thumb lighting has conducted supporting the importance of the role of light in our health.
In fact, we know that the effects of light on the human being does not affect only his psycho-physical well-being, but significantly affect his health Involving crucial aspects of life such as mood, sleep, nutrition, memory, hormone production, blood circulation, affecting cognitive and attentional faculties and, in some cases, even leading to oncological pathologies major (just think of workers with night shifts). The human organism is physiologically organized according to rhythms thanks to its goldenbiological logic. A complex mechanism that, through the expression of particular genes, governs metabolic processes by synchronizing them with the light-dark rhythm. Light is responsible for this synchronization; constant exposure to light sources inhibits the production of melatonin, the regulator of our biological clock, but also of other hormones such as cortisol, estrogen and serotonin whose secretion varies during the hours of the day precisely according to light exposure .
The light of the future is called Clever light is Circadian friendly intelligent light, custom designed according to Well certification parameters for creating healthy environments in balance with the circadian cycle.
Go to the Clever Light page: https://polliceilluminazione.it/clever-light/
collaborations
have the signature of marco pollice numerous lighting projects including the Flagship store for Stuart Weitzman realized in Milan and Rome with architect Zaha Hadid, the Stadio delle Alpi in Turin, the Stock Exchange in Istanbul with Aldo Cibic, the M3 Line in Milan with Claudio Dini, the Portello in Milan with Mario Bellini, the Villa for Alberto Alessi on Lake Maggiore with Aldo Rossi, Mariella Burani with Antonio Citterio, the Meazza Stadium in Milan, the Wally Yacht, the Vodafone and Bloomberg headquarters, the XXII Winter Olympic Games in Soči (Russia) the residential villa in Tirana project Bello Dias. And also Residential Villa in Lugano project Patricia Pedrazzi, Residential Villa Porto Santo Stefano project Studio Archflorence, Residential Villa in Moscow project Lazzaro Raboni. Today Marco Pollice is also a Consultant for the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este in Como and the Golf Resort of Castiglion del Bosco in Montalcino, Siena.
“I am fascinated by the knowledge of light and I investigate when it acts on the matter and on the health of human beings; I am passionate about the dialogue that goes on when things are related to each other and I study the effects that derive from it”
awards
In 2013 special mention Codega award for the creation of the Stuart Weitzman flagship store in Via Sant’ Andrea in Milan, lighting entirely with LEDs.
2008 Compasso D’Oro Award for Wally Yacht.
