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| 50 years of ISH The world's leading trade fair for the Bathroom Experience, Building Services, Energy, Air-conditioning Technology and Renewable Energies will take place from 10 to 14 March 2009 in Frankfurt am Main. ISH will be celebrating its 50 years of existence and with it a success story that is unique in the world. The success story of the world's leading trade fair began in 1959, when the Central German Association of Installation Engineers, Plumbers, Coppersmiths and Central Heating Engineers got together with the Messe- und Ausstellungs-GmbH and others - representatives from politics and business - and decided upon the launch of a new trade fair in Frankfurt am Main. The first ISH began on 14 May 1960 and initially still had the title "Specialist exhibition for sanitation and heating technology". 520 companies, 63 of them from outside Germany offered – as was stated in the final report for 1960 – the hitherto "most comprehensive overview of available products, pre-fabricated items and materials" and had "contributed to the creation of a genuine European market in this field". Proof of this was furnished by the fig-ure of more than 190, 000 visitors, who came to see the range of products at the ISH premiere for themselves In the face of the pleasing prognoses for growth and the success of the ISH premiere there was no question in the mind of any of those involved, but to continue the event. Only its frequency and a fixed, appropriate length for the trade fair had yet to be found. For the sec-ond ISH did not take place until 1963 and, moreover – a unique occurrence – in October. It lasted a whole nine days! On the other hand, with the extension of its title it acquired its enduring, official title very early on: "International Trade Exhibition for Sanitation and Heating Technology", which explains the name ISH, that would later be de-rived as a result of a simple abbreviation. The addition of "international" was intended to cater for the growing interest in presenting their new products in Frankfurt shown by manufacturers from outside Germany. At that stage people were already beginning to look way beyond German borders. In the five decades that it has existed, ISH has proved again and again that it provides the right answers to global challenges and is an innovations platform for the latest technologies and design developments. Be it with economical new heating, air-conditioning and solar technology in the wake of the first oil crisis in 1973, or when designer Luigi Colani presented a whole bathroom collection at this leading world trade fair in the seventies. In Frankfurt, the industry does not exhibit fantasy visions, but rather immediately applicable intelligent products and systems together with developments in design. Especially in this anniversary year of ISH, the focus on the economical use of resources, a topic which cuts across all specialist boundaries, makes this absolutely clear. With its optimum combination of water with energy, ISH is – to judge by its product spectrum and the sales volumes related to that and by the high degree of potential for energy savings in buildings – the world's largest trade fair for environmentally-friendly building services engineering. The holistic concept of ISH which, to a certain extent, brings together two trade fairs under the one roof, with The Bathroom Experience on the one hand and building services, energy and air-conditioning technology on the other, is one of the essential factors in the unique success of ISH. In the context of this holistic approach, some 2,400 companies, including all the market leaders and those leading the field in technology, will be there with a range that is unbeatable both in breadth and in depth. Along with the optimal location in Frankfurt am Main, the success of ISH is also distinguished by the large numbers of international exhibitors and visitors: one in four visitors to the trade fair in Frankfurt comes from outside Germany. Amongst exhibitors the figure is more than half. And more than 200,000 visitors make this the most visited event of the Messe Frankfurt group and are proof enough of the success of this leading world trade fair. The anniversary is being duly marked at the 2009 ISH with a special programme and an anniversary publication entitled "50 Years of ISH – Life with Water, Heat and Air". write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Construction News :: home page |