Bertrand Balas

In 1965, during a trip with a major lighting equipment distributor, I came into contact with the Raak company, which proved crucial to the development of my design skills. The company director said that if we (two architects) had any projects in this field, he would be very interested, provided they aligned with the company's ethos. For two or three years, the idea simmered in my mind, and I began sketching out some designs. Anxiously, I sent them—I was a young man under thirty—to Mr. Lockhorn, the company's manager, who, to my surprise, accepted one! Wow! I then feverishly set about developing various objects, including "Here Comes the Sun," created in two diameters and three other models.

In total, I had five objects produced. Then my work as an architect completely consumed my free time, and I no longer had the freedom of mind to create spaces where it could wander, to imagine forms, volumes, colors, and materials, and above all, to let myself drift through time, extended time, without precise obligations, and try to formalize something that, just like that, eventually emerged. Sometimes to my own surprise. Then, much later, when I had retired and turned my life towards other activities, I was suddenly awakened by a phone call from Frédéric Winkler, interested in what would become "Here Comes the Sun," and suddenly my career as a designer of lighting objects was relaunched. To my great joy.