David Trubridge’s stunning collaboration opens at Wanted Design NYC

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Peter

David Trubridge The Elements installation with Swarovski Elements and TSAR carpets

The Elements, David Trubridge‘s collaboration with Swarovski Elements and the really cool Australian company TSAR carpets, opens tomorrow (17th May) at Wanted Design in New York. It was previously seen at the Zona Tortona during the Milan Furniture Fair.

And what an impact it made! We tend to associate David with wood, and there was a wooden bench, Driftwood, but there were also the TSAR Carpets carpets and rugs, and the lighting component employed Swarovski crystal.

The installation is a quietly contemplative space, encouraging reflection on the vital role of the elements. The basis of all life on Earth is the eternal cycle of water: evaporated from the oceans by the fire of the Sun, it is carried in the air to the mountains where it falls on the Earth as rain, running back to the ocean in rivers.

Here is Light Rain…

Light Rain David Trubridge Swarovski Elements

Light Rain David Trubridge Swarovski Crystal Elements

… and Geode (the fire of the sun):

Swarovski Crystal Elements Geode David Trubridge

geode David Trubridge Swarovski Elements

And here is Light Rain over the Mount Ruapehu carpet:

The Elements David Trubridge

The installation is remarkably effective. But what is more impressive is what it says about David Trubridge’s creative vision, and his ability to translate it into reality, recasting carpets and crystal into mountains, the sun, rainfall…

It was therefore a fitting basis for the launch of David’s book, So Far:

So Far David Trubridge book

He says it is,

“The story of my journey – both metaphorically as an artist/designer, and physically as a traveller – which shows that my art and my life are inextricably linked.”

Go here to buy it.

Posted in Interior, Lights | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The classic MGX lighting collection now with limited availability — and collectible

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Peter

MGX by Materialise OpenCube table light

.MGX by Materialise tell us that:

.MGX would like to announce that a number of our Principal Collection pieces will move into our new Classics collection.

The Classics collection will consist of designs, including the award-winning Omi.MGX by Assa Ashuach, and Twister.MGX by Janne Kyttanen, which played an influential role in the history of .MGX. Now available only in very limited quantities, these designs are anticipated to become true collector’s items. We invite you to own a piece of design history before it’s too late!

And they are right — they will become collectors’ pieces! Suddenly, the whole world has become aware of 3D printing, with the fuss in America about 3D-printed guns (also a recent story line in NCIS) and a not-to-be-missed episode of The Big bang Theory….

But 3D-printed lights, made by stereolithography or selective laser sintering, have been around for ten years. This is a very good example of how the top end of the lighting market provides an opportunity for makers to try out commercializing, in small runs, new techniques and materials. Yet another reason why the world of fine lighting is so extraordinarily interesting!

We have believed, on the basis of nothing at all, that the original .MGX lights designed by Janne Kyttanen were the first commercially-available 3D printed consumer items, and that they were released by Materialise (one of the most important companies using the techniques to make prototypes) as a marketing exercise.

This means that these iconic lights will become collectors’ items, not just because they are beautiful, and no longer made, but because they were the first of what we will all take for granted before long. Someone at BT said in the early 1980s that every office worker would one day have a computer on his or her desk. How we all laughed! Now it is being said that we’ll all have our own 3D printers. Instead of buying things in shops, we’ll download the program and make them ourselves. .MGX is called .MGX because that is the extension of the files they use in the computer that tells the 3D printer what to do — and which were included on a disk in the box when you bought a light, so that you could make more of your own. Which actually you couldn’t do because 3D printers were huge then, and very, very expensive. But it was a delightful touch that elegantly made the point about what 3D printing would one day be able to do.

So which are getting the Classic treatment? There is open_cube.mgx at the head of this post, and twister.mgx,

MGX by Materialise Twister shade

 

.MGX by Materialise Twister floor and table setthe omi.mgx pendant light,

Omi.mgx Materialise pendant light

and the fourth is metropolis_II.mgx:

Metropolis II .mgx by MaterialiseMetropolis II table light from .MGX by MaterialiseMetropolis .mgx by Materialise detailWe were worried that all these fabulous lights were being retired. Fortunately, many are still in the main collection, including the two first (and finest?) by Janne Kyttanen, Lily…

Lily .MGX by Materialise Janne Kyttanen

and Lotus…

. MGX by Materialise Lotus

..plus the mesmerizing Quin, the result of a formula fed into the computer that controls the 3D printer by the mathematician and artist Bathsheba Grossman:

Quin pendant light from .MGX by Materialise

See the full collection here. And snap up those limited editions before you have to pay a fortune for a second hand one at auction!

Posted in Interior, Lights | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A LED Cellula from Anthologie Quartett

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Peter

Cellula LED Anthologie Quartett

Cellula from Anthologie Quartett, what a great idea — a linear chandelier! Particularly since most dining tables are now (sadly) rectangular, rather than round.

But a surprising idea at the time — it was designed by Nunzia Carbone and Tiziano Vudafieri in 1997, when lead crystal was completely out of fashion. By showing that this material was (a) beautiful and (b) compatible with avant-garde design ideas, it helped to make possible the revival of interest in it.

That revival of interest led to so many fakes being made. They are easy to distinguish because their quality is so low, notably, end caps on the structure and messy handling of the meeting of the cables and the structure — not to mention, cheap glass and poorly finished metal. The original version is made from a beautifully crafted single piece of aluminium with the maximum attention given to all the detailing (e.g. slots for the wire carrying the crystals, to keep them exactly in place).

Anthologie Quartett Cellula chandelierThe LED version preserves this quality. The main difference is that the light source is now in a slot in the underside of the structure, as opposed to there being candle lamps in amongst the crystal drops, mounted in holders — compare the picture above of the original with this picture of the LED version:

Anthologie Quartett Cellula LED chandelier Continue reading →

Posted in Interior, Lights | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Milan 2013: Vistosi — still the best source of really useful contemporary glass lights

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Peter

Vistosi Implode pendant lights

Inevitably, we all tend to remember best the unusual lights — and bloggers to feature them — but they are rarely the most useful. Unusual lights are only suited to unusual locations.

So the lights that are truly useful — that we can put in all sorts of places, mix with all sorts of lights and interiors — are not the shouty ones.

Vistosi has many really special lights in its collection (most notably the Giogali system of Angelo Mangiarotti and the Alega of Vico Magistretti), as befits this venerable company that is run by one of the leading Venetian glass families. But Vistosi is also the best source of good, well made, well priced, useful contemporary lights made of glass.

So we are going to focus in this post on a fine example that was on Vistosi’s stand at Euroluce — the Implode pendant and ceiling lights.

The first indication that it has bottom is who designed it — Gregorio Spini, one of the founders of Kundalini. Besides setting the tone of this unusual company, he was also responsible wacky lights like Sama and others with a similar mid-century feel, such as the Ray Bow floor light. He left Kundalini in 2008 to go freelance.

Implode pendant light from Vistosi

The second indication is the clever things that are being done with glass. You have to see it to understand it, but this is how Vistosi describe it: the collection “…represents the illusion of a surface created by the implosion of a volume. The glass, due to the thickness, shows a gradation of multiple layers of white and transparent crystal.”

What this means is that though it is polite — not shouty — it is not boring. The form is elegant,  and the glass really interesting if you take the time to look at it.

Such advantages would be no good if the luminaire was not available in useful forms and sizes. Fortunately, there are three ceiling lights… Continue reading →

Posted in Interior, Lights | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Milan 2013: FontanaArte power ahead with top designers, new materials, new typologies

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Peter

FontanaArte Odeon table light by Studio Klass

Yes FontanaArte‘s rebirth continues at Euroluce with a virtuoso display of new lights from top design studios, using unusual materials, and creating new types of light.

A case in point is Odeon by Studio Klass. It is designed to sit on a table (or a floor) with the side out of which the light comes facing a wall, so that it creates reflected, shadowless, ambient light — a new type of light. It could light up a dark corner. This is what it looks like if you turn the lit area towards you.

FontanaArte Odeon table light Studio Klass

You see the little tag on the back? That is so that you can pick it up easily. When you do, you will be struck by how light it is for something that is H64cm. That is because the main structure is made out of expanded polystyrene. And, as if that is not an unusual enough material, it is then covered in leather!

Being an Italian leather product, it is the finest leather, beautifully finished and  stitched — in fact, so good is it that it evokes the finest English leatherwork — of Rolls Royces and Edward Green shoes.

FontanaArte Odeon wall washer Studio Klass

Expanded Polystyrene is used again to form the main body of Yupik, designed for them by designers of the moment, Form Us With Love. Making lights out of wacky, disposable materials is a yawn-inducing student project usually, but for Yupik it really works. I think that is partly because of how well it is executed — not just the body, but also the diffuser, which is a beautifully crafted, curved polycarbonate lens: Continue reading →

Posted in Interior, Lights | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment