From the first flicker of Thomas Edison’s light-bulb in 1879, man-made lighting has come to shape our everyday lives. From softly lit corners to endless industrial installations, the ability to override nature has not only changed the way we do things, but has allowed us to explore the creative and emotive effects of light and shade on a space also. As the interior design legend Billy Baldwin once noted “there is one fundamental fact about lighting: where there is no light, there is no beauty”.
Inspired by our current love for all things vintage, there has been a real surge in interest this past few years for sleek and fun mid-century lighting. The progression is a natural one, since many of the industrial designers we most admire from the post war period also produced lamps as well. It’s almost an unwritten truth that every reputable designer and architect feels the need to design both a chair and a lamp at least once in their career. Luckily for us, that has left a wealth of beautiful designs to go and discover.....
Why mid-century lamps differ
While the first electric lamps emerged within only a few years of Edison’s 1880 bulb patent, these early pieces were to pioneer a new and still distrusted light source. Designers, very aware of this situation, pursued the common tactic of emulating the form and features of other lamps at the time- namely the oil lamp. It would be a shrewd move, but one that would ultimately influence the principles of lamp design for the next 50 years. While lamps running up to the early 1920s may have been beautifully constructed, they still tended to lack their own unique identity as well..........
CREATED USING TEMPLATE OPTION 2.