Vintage View: Iconic standard lamps to light up any space
Karim Rashidís laser-cut, folded aluminium Cadmo floor light, €1,089, lamptwist.com, wall-lights, from €325 various suppliers.
FLOOR lights without the support of a table or the air-space of a pendant, have to work that little bit harder to make a successful aesthetic stand. Here’s my choice of some fabulous classics heavily imitated in our high street-style hangars.
Fifty years old this year, the Panthella by master light designer Verner Panton c.1971 for the Danish house of Louis Polsen, has been interpreted as pendants, table lamps and floor sitting lamps. Semi-opaque in pressure moulded acrylic and polycarbonate with a discreet steel stem and trumpet foot, its starkly 2001 Space Odyssey look belies a gentle hemispheric light diffuser, that has the line and recognition to sit elegantly in a teenage den or jumble of Louis Quinze.
The original sculptural white table lamp of 1971 has been joined by searing poster box colours, brass and chrome — all highly rock n’ roll choices for the entry-level Mini Panthella with integrated LED lamps (from €400). The 130cm ABS plastic floor lamp combines the charm of a vintage velvet-underground mushroom lamp, with the loftiness of an Edwardian standard lamp. €878, lights.ie
This spring saw the release of Panton’s beloved Pantop in a floor lamp — a bell-shaped lamp-shade rather like a melted drum cymbal sitting high on the conductor’s baton. Released in 1980, the table lamp has an eager following, but the floor lamp is more successful in terms of balance, and in an antique brass it’s exceptionally classy; €1017.50, online suppliers include nordicurban.com.
For something still curiously daring after 57 years, the 1964 Fun 1 STM lamp in a floor-standing model shimmies into any space in a tiered cascade of seashell discs. Something to hand on to the kids, the price is blinding even for Panton at €1285, verpan.com
If you love vintage drum shades and the dip and swish of the rather jaded Flos Arco, the Twiggy might be barking right up your tree. Created by highly experimental designer Marc Sadler for Foscarini and much copied, it’s a highly dynamic but simple form inspired by a bobbing fishing rod that can reach up to 215cm.
Sadler considered putting a fisherman on the base (happily that didn’t happen) but the Twiggy does have the ability to move very slightly, to find its own position like a river-side reed using the stem and lamp as counter-weights. Together with the really beautiful disc and stem base, there’s a diffuser in the housing to soften the illumination — a useful choice floating out over a small dining table. The lamp is made in coated fibre-glass-based composite material, PMMA, polycarbonate, and coated metal, and comes in six colours together with a Wood option. From €1326 with various Foscarini suppliers.
If your hearts beating for those classic drum shades — it’s worth noting that Romanian wallpaper designers Mind the Gap, have gone into lighting, and have some eccentric, waking-dream designs to use for an up-cycled standard pole, or to set on their own Artisan pole bases (€239); shades from €147, mindtheg.com. Fabricate (Ireland) offer hand-made shades to order from Karen Cunneen Bilbow’s own artwork from just €70, fabricateireland.com. Lola’s Lampshades is lush with the most gorgeous colour and pattern curated by maker Aoife Donoghue, again all hand-made, lolaslampshades.ie, and don’t forget Sarah O’Dea at Shady & the Lamp in Dublin, another Irish designer with highly distinctive one-off pieces to dress up an old floor treasure, shadyandthelamp.ie
The Marset Funicular by Catalonia’s famed industrial designer Lluis Porqueras (b.1930), is a brilliant floor show bargain from 1979 with a unique slide to the lamp-housings. With a tall, slim pole and clip mechanism it can swing its little clam dish around 360 degrees and cheerfully ride up and down the pole, funicular style. Porqueras had a deep interest in the effect of light and shade in his work, and if you have multiple jobs for a standard lamp, it would do well in a living area where the light can drop down to the pages of your book, or sit up for general ambient duty. €269 at thefinnishdesignshop.com, with table lamps (stunners) from €198. Marset of Spain f.1942, is a light brand on the level of Fase, and worth exploring. For a worthy addition to late mid-century luxe, their Dipping table lamp with its glass paint-dipped globe, striped glowing stature and gilded trunk by Jordi Canudus is a fascinating collector piece, €272. Suppliers include thefinnishdesignshop.com
Venturing into pricy heirloom quality and the lamps that are influencing what you see in Harvey Norman, Habitat or Ikea, we’ve talked about the 1960s born house of Artemide of Milan, Italy before on Vintage View and they never disappoint. Karim Rashid’s laser-cut, folded aluminium Cadmo floor light is an architects’ favourite with an indirect up-light, and a diffused downward spotlight. Rashid was hailed by Time magazine as the most famous industrial designer in all of the Americas, and he’s garnered over 300 awards for his work. He’s known for having a goofy sense of humour and he explains away the Cadmo as being based on the hourglass curves of Sophia Loren – presumably pulled up to the ceiling. Available in white outside/white inside, black outside/white inside and red outside/white inside, and in halogen/LED or LED versions. If you lose your mind to this fascinating fold, the Cadmo comes in an equally alluring polished wall sconce. €1,089, lamptwist.com, wall-lights from €325 various suppliers.
Earlier but no less startling, the Grasshopper designed by Greta Magnusson Grossman in 1947 for the brand Gubi on the Copenhagen docklands, would make a nice investment as a wedding present (just announce you’re marrying yourself like Carrie did in Sex and The City to get her shoes back).
The bell-shaped Bauhaus lamp sits on a handsomely reclining tubular steel pole that descends to a simple triangle of three pod feet. It’s a good directional floor lamp for an intimate position by a sofa and includes brass joints to focus the shade exactly where you want it. The Grasshopper can leap into your living room in a choice of vintage red, black, anthracite, warm grey, blue-grey, white matt, aspen yellow, Andorra red or olive-brown. Best price: €645–€671, lampmesteren.com
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