WAC Group / Schonbek

WAC Group / Schonbek has been selected as a 2026 Industry Icon in Home, Design & Smart Living by The 2026 List, brought to you by Industry & Influence, recognizing the organization’s ability to combine luxury lighting heritage with contemporary engineering, connected-home technology, architectural systems, and a major 2026 product expansion.

Schonbek was founded in Bohemia in 1870.

That history gives the brand one of the deepest legacies in decorative crystal lighting.

WAC Group brings a very different kind of strength: engineering, LED technology, architectural lighting, controls, and vertically integrated product development.

Together, the two sides create an unusual proposition.

Lighting can be decorative and technical at the same time.

Heritage That Still Has to Innovate

A century-old design vocabulary only remains relevant if it can keep changing.

Schonbek’s chandeliers and decorative fixtures continue to draw on crystal, metalwork, sculptural forms, and the emotional impact of reflected light, but its 2026 portfolio moves well beyond historical reproduction.

The company introduced dozens of new products across its Signature, Beyond, and Forever collections.

The range includes traditional references, contemporary silhouettes, integrated LED, new crystal expressions, and products designed to work with modern interiors rather than simply evoke the past.

That balance is difficult.

A heritage brand can lose relevance by becoming too nostalgic, or lose identity by chasing every trend.

Schonbek’s current direction keeps crystal at the center while expanding how and where it can be used.

WAC Home Connects Luxury and Control

One of the most important 2026 developments is WAC Home.

The connected-lighting platform brings smart control into the decorative-lighting experience and allows select Schonbek products to become part of a broader intelligent home ecosystem.

That changes what luxury lighting can mean.

A chandelier is no longer limited to on, off, and a dimmer.

Connected control can shape scenes, schedules, brightness, color behavior, and the way multiple fixtures work together.

For WAC Group, the opportunity is to merge technology that has historically lived in utilitarian controls with products that people choose for emotional and aesthetic reasons.

The interface disappears.

The experience remains.

Lightovation 2026 Signals a New Chapter

At Lightovation 2026, WAC Group and Schonbek presented a product direction built around heritage craftsmanship and intelligent technology.

The presentation highlighted a more connected vision for the lighting portfolio while introducing new decorative forms and materials.

The event also demonstrated the breadth of WAC Group itself.

WAC Lighting, WAC Architectural, Modern Forms, and Schonbek address different parts of the lighting market, from technical and architectural applications to decorative luxury.

That portfolio allows the organization to think about lighting at the building level rather than only at the fixture level.

Architecture, Wellness, and Light

WAC Group is also pushing into a more architectural role.

At Light + Building 2026, the company introduced WAC Architectural to a global audience, bringing together architectural, interior, exterior, and decorative solutions.

The company’s educational programming also increasingly addresses the relationship between light and human wellbeing.

That is an important shift in the industry.

Lighting design is no longer judged only by brightness and appearance.

Designers increasingly consider glare, color quality, visual comfort, circadian effects, energy use, control, and how light supports the function of a space throughout the day.

Engineering Behind the Beauty

Luxury lighting depends on invisible engineering.

A fixture may appear delicate, but it has to manage heat, power, optics, weight, structural loads, dimming, installation, maintenance, and increasingly networked control.

WAC Group’s vertically integrated manufacturing and shared engineering infrastructure give Schonbek access to capabilities that a purely decorative brand might not have internally.

That relationship creates a bridge between craft and industrial technology.

The result is a portfolio where the most visible element may be crystal, but the competitive advantage extends much deeper into the product.