By the end of one’s last day at Euroluce, one is tired and unresponsive. I was lucky therefore that I finished on a high note, being shown the Penta display by the charming and efficient Mariarosa. It was that rare thing — a stand with no duds!

We’ll post separately about two designs, Tic Toc and Glo Mini, later this week.

The first light featured in this post, and shown above, is Juliette by Carlo Colombo. At first glance, it is  a simple, unfussy 21st century design reminiscent of the mid 20th century, the 1930s — Félix Aublet,  for example. The closer look reveals excellent proportions, neatly patterned electrical cable, and a marble base.

There are three sizes — a floor-standing light, H1700mm:

and two sizes of table light, H550mm and H300mm:

in black nickel, or white or light blue or red. The bases are in white carrara marble or black marquinia marble. The weight of the marble allows the bases to be crisply cut discs, in proportion to the rest of the design.

Klint, by Penta’s art director, Umberto Asnago, is an unusual glass table light, in two sizes, Ø300 H300mm, and Ø150mm H280mm:

There are two separately switched LED light sources in the base — one in the centre and one around the outside, allowing different amounts and intensity of light. The result is a choice of two elegant glass sculptures that also happen to be sources of adjustable ambient light:

Finally, designed for Penta by Daniel Debiasi and Federico Sandri of the design studio Something, there is Labo, so called because the inspiration was laboratory glassware (an extremely specialized field, demanding bespoke work of astonishing accuracy, as practised by ASO Glassblowers [01235 834477]  who are next door to our warehouse):

Like Juliette, there is a floor version, total height 1,490mm:

and two sizes of table version, H550mm and H330mm, in clear, blue or smoked glass:

That link to specialist glass working is justified because the complex shape of these lights is apparently made with no seams. The result is very pure — no joints, springs &c.:

Yes, you see the cable going up through the centre to the lamp, but that now becomes an attractive detail. Again, as you look closer, you see that they have thought about the cable — it is plaited and in a choice of colours, yellow or black.

Penta’s collection is very varied — there is no “typical” Penta light, which is a strength but also a problem at the simple level of remembering what they do. Sadly, they are not on Architonic yet, so they are not in our LIGHT FINDER, meaning that your search results won’t show their lights, however relevant they may be. Therefore, it behoves one to get their catalogue down and to go through it periodically. Of course, Cameron Peters Fine Lighting staff will draw lights by this excellent company to your attention whenever they suit your brief.

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…

… and Geode (the fire of the sun):

And here is Light Rain over the Mount Ruapehu carpet:

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:

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.

.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,

the omi.mgx pendant light,

and the fourth is metropolis_II.mgx:

We 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…

and 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:

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!

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).

The 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:

Faking is always wrong, but it is particularly bad when it is Anthologie Quartett’s prodcuts that are being faked. No-one is more adventurous with the range of products and designs that they make available: they need the income from the hits to fund the risks. If companies like this do not take such risks, there will be no interesting designs for the fakers to fake. Parasites are not meant to kill their hosts (because that would be curtains for the parasite as well) but, just as in nature, human fakers do not always take this into account….

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.

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…

…and three pendants:

The different sizes have different characters:

The smallest ceiling light is described by Vistosi as a spot light, and can also be used on the wall. This would be an excellent choice for either side of a mirror — it is Ø16cm D18cm:

Our problem is: how do we get you to stop, to look properly at such lights (not just these ones), and to realize in how many locations you could use them.

Particularly since they are very well made and very well priced.

Maybe this post will help, and encourage you to look at the rest of the Vistosi collection. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it should be. Because they are not currently keeping the information about their lights up-to-date on Architonic, most of them will not appear when you do searches for glass lights in our LIGHT FINDER or on the sites of any of their resellers. To see all Vistosi’s lights, you have to remember to go here.

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.

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.

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:

Nor is the expanded polystyrene body just a gimmick. The idea is that you can use this light in a variety of ways:

You might tie it up loosely and occasionally use it as a torch:

in which case, the lightness, the resistance to scratching and being scratched — even the warmth in the hand — are all attractive features.

Ferréol Babin‘s Lunaire wall light is unusual in that the amount of light that it casts is directly affected by the user moving the centre part in or out, like a drawer — a reworking of Carlo Forcolini’s Light-Drawer for Oy Light. You can see the drawer both in and out here:

By making the whole applique round, rather than rectangular, it allows soft, elegant light effects whether the drawer is in…

or out:

The centre can be black or white.

After such revolutionary designs, Andreas Engesvik‘s Blom probably looks a bit conventional — a jolly, colourful, table light:

Well, it is, but there is more to it than that. The colourful metal parts are like the petals of a flower, or cupped hands holding something precious:

They are also functional. They can be rotated to allow only uplight, or to allow light out on just one side:

The only disappointment on the FontanaArte stand was The Albedo pendant light…

…which turned out to be by one of our all-time-favourite design teams, Studio Drift! (See our rave review of their Fragile Nature here.)

But this is not a tragic fall to earth — rather, what we were seeing were prototypes .They are constructed by hand, from a very light material, in a series of panels that all come together at a single point, at the bottom.

Different versions looks better resolved at this exhibition held at the GEM museum of contemporary art in The Hague…

…but the simpler Albedo will probably prove to be more satisfying when the design is  fully resolved.

Whether through a misunderstanding of Adolf Loos‘ dictum that ornament is crime, or because of a fear of being accused of mishandling content, meaning, interest, colour…, minimalism has been used as an excuse for removing things (even to only daring to wear black). The results are drab and boring — often downright ugly if it is a 1960s building in rain-stained concrete.

Truly minimalist works are the hardest of all to create, but when they are done well, by a master, magic things happen.

Davide Groppi is just such a master. Have a look at the his Miss pendant at the top of the post. The luminaire comprises the simplest metal tube, in matt black or matt white, H75cm Ø2.5cm, and a pool of light on the table below it. At first glance there seems to be no connexion between them.

Then the mind registers that there is a connexion — an invisible one, but no less real for that. It is the effect found in the finest depictions of the Annunciation — here, Donatello‘s in Santa Croce…

…where the most powerful element, the communication, the spark that passes between the eyes of the angel and Madonna, is in fact not physically present.

But the spark that Davide Groppi creates is no flash in the pan — he has form! Here is his Nulla spot light illuminating a table top:

It is recessed itno the ceiling and has a diameter of only 25mm! Yet this is what it can do:

Like most minimalists, Davide Groppi has abjured colour — until now! At Milan, he launched coloured versions of Miss:

And he did it really properly, turning to the world’s most famous exponent of colour in fashion, the Spanish aristocrat, Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, 12th Marquise of Castelldosrius…

…to get not just the right colours, in the right combination, but the exact hues.

Another introduction, Tetatet, is novel in a different way:

Recognizing that, both for comfort and for saving energy, there should be a lamp on orjust above the centre of a dining table, Miss provides the pendant option, and now Tetatet is a source of light on the table, like a candle. This is usually difficult to do, because lamps need power cables, and tables are moved. Tetatet is battery powered.

It looks as if it should fall over: it doesn’t because it is magnetic. In case the table is not made of a suitable metal, they provide a metal plate to put under the table cloth. This allows another minimal, gravity-defying design, which requires no large, heavy base.

Davide Groppi is the best kind of minimalist. He does not work by denying himself what could give give his products interest. Instead, he is a consummate artist — a magician, capable of poetic effects — who shows how powerful a minimal. abstract composition can be.

See here a video of his stand at Euroluce with his commentary (in Italian):

When something is done well, it looks very easy. Many Italian lighting companies are reacting to the current economic climate, and the reduction of lighting retailers in Italy, by deciding to be more open to contract work. But many of them do not know how to set about doing it.

Oluce came to the same conclusion, but they know exactly how to do it! So, what are they doing?

First, they are making it absolutely clear that they really are interested in making special versions of their lights. They have branded the offer “bespoke tailoring” because this evokes both what they will be doing — custom pieces, not just “off the peg” — but also the quality standards of the best tailors. You can read their announcement of the service here.

Then, they created a special area of their stand for the “bespoke tailoring” offer. I’ve selected the picture at the top of this post because it includes Francesco Rota‘s fine Canopy pendant light of 2009 . It is really a shot of a table in this special area.

But it did not only have a proper table and chairs (essential though these are). Nor did they just have Coupé 3321s in very unusual colours and metal finishes. They had also  laid out the cloths, finishes and materials you could choose from, as your tailor does his cloths. I counted fourteen paint colours, ten metal finishes, fifty six anodizations, plus marbles, stones…

This was a display set into a wall:

And here, samples are under glass set into a large table:

Fabrics:

plus leathers:

and other materials:

So, not only is Oluce making it clear that they welcome requests for specials, they are also making it as easy as possible for the specifier to find the exact colour, finish and material that they would like. They can put the samples together to see if a paint really does work with a particular metal finish.

Well, they could do these things in the area of the stand during Euroluce that was dedicated to “bespoke tailoring”, but that show is now over. What will be particularly interesting to Cameron Peters Fine Lighting, as the only professional service supporting interior designers when they specify lighting, is how this will work day-to-day, in practice, in London.

So their solution is simple. Obvious, maybe. But no other lighting maker has approached customization this way before. Well done, Oluce.

Quasar don’t really need to change to meet the new economic environment. They have their own way of doing things and they regularly launch designs that most other manufacturers would regard as too risky.

In the end, though, it is about making lights so beautiful, so stunning that they are irresistible — no-one thinks about how they got there.  Unfortunately, many of the world’s most spectacular lights do not always photograph well, so above is an amateur picture taken of Quasar’s stand at Euroluce, dominated by the two Universe Squares with glass rods, that drew people onto the stand as soon as they caught sight of it — resistance was futile. Here they are from a different angle:

You see that person on the left gazing up at it? He is doing this because it is as fascinating close up — beautiful, but also a puzzle: how exactly does it do what it does…? Cleverly, is this answer — this is one of a series by Jan Pauwels, who can do clever things.

For example, he realized that the Universe Square is big (100cm x 1000cm) but that people in humble dwellings might like their own Universe. So Orion was launched at Euroluce:

It is only 175x30x30cm so it would go over a rectangular table. Recognizing that merely scaling down would not provide such an interesting object, Orion is not symmetrical — some of its dimensions seem to have greater energy than others. It would make a good starship. Again, good pictures are difficult to find, but here it is on the Quasar stand anyway, partly reflected in a mirror:

This is M-Light, designed by the silversmiths,  Rob and Jaap Thalen:

It is a fascinating object — seemingly a simple ball made up of repeated identical shapes, but the pattern is not consistent — you can see above the gashes that periodically puncture the surface. This one is Ø45cm — or it could be M-light D.150, which is identical except that it is Ø150cm. There is also another colourway:

This next light, Spica was notable not so much for itself as for the LEDs in it, that have a CRI of 95! Yes, 95!! Spica is quite large, so it evenly the surface of the table under it, towards which people were unconsciously drawn. It was always occupied, so this picture was taken when the fair was not open:

Spica comes in white or black and is Ø120cm:

Finally, Sparks.

I have already posted about this light here. Suffice it to say now, therefore, that Euroluce gave us a chance to have a really good discussion about Sparks, with its designer, Daniel Becker, whilst standing in front of a largish Sparks installation. Not only did he turn out to be a really nice guy, but I also now know a lot more about how this modular system works. So when you are ready to specify one, give us a call.

As will become clear from these post-Milan 2013 posts, companies are responding to the current markets, which are difficult, and changing fast, in different ways. It is not always predictable who will respond in a good way, but we will be celebrating some who are.

Milan-based Cini&Nils is one of them. They are purists. they make a light fitting when such a light fitting is necessary. The requirement defines the luminaire — how it functions, what it looks like, what it is made of. They make them very well. And there is space for beautiful detailing — look at a particular favourite of ours, the Gradi Scrivania, for example:

As a result, they have inspired passionate advocacy from the architects, lighting designers and interior designers who have understood them. This approach has also resulted in their being trail blazers, as the logic of a design has taken them where no-one has gone before — the first 230V cable track lighting, for example.

The trouble is that most people choose a light by what it looks like, not by what it does. So Cini&Nils is reinventing itself (hence Cini&Nils 2.0) as it creates new designs that explore what is possible with LEDs.

For example, look at the picture at the head of this post. It is a composition made up from FormaLa, a flexible strip that has LEDs on one side.

You can curve it as you like. It will project light from one side, to contrast with the dark on the other.

The result is bang on trend — modules which allow dramatic effects over wide areas of wall and ceiling, depending upon the number and placing of the modules used. It will be available in four lengths — from 138cm to 540cm.

Actually, it is bang on another trend as well — lights which cast dramatic light effects on the surfaces around them, a trend that is also demonstrated by Naica, but with a different (random, ethereal) type of pattern:

Naica consists of 57 methacrylate rods with a square cross section arranged in a chequerboard pattern, perpendicular to the wall. The pattern in the image above is real, as is proved by this image of Naica in a real room:

Of course, Naica‘s pattern may be too exuberant. What if you would like something more tightly disciplined? Like this, on a wall?

Or this, on a ceiling?

Assolo is a simple idea — a Ø20cm ring at right angles to the surface (wall or ceiling), with one 16W LED mounted shining back onto the surface. You can never look directly at it, so there is no glare). Have a look at this close-up picture:

Then, to show how ornamental they are prepared to be, here is Collier! How decorative is this?!

Well, the answer is very decorative, of course (even when it is off).

But, being Cini&Nils, it is also clever — a lot of thought has gone into it.

It is also modular. You start with one Ø32cm ring:

Then you can keep adding more rings, one at a time (sort of). Here is one with three rings:

There are two light sources. One shines down from the bottom,casting direct light onto the table underneath. The other creates diffused radiant light by shining through the rings, each of which is made up of 20 little methacrylate cubes.

A Cubist Caboche…?

So, whilst remaining true to the principles that underpin their heritage, Cini&Nils are greeting the new world of vanishing lighting retailers…smaller budgets…LEDs…new trends (modular, wall patterns) with creativity, originality and courage.

Cini&Nils are excited by light. So are Catellani & Smith. How many others are…?