Lux: Lamps and Lights by Gestalten.
As The Big Guy said on the first day, “Let there be light.” But I have a feeling that if he were saying that today, lighting designers might make that light a pendant, with a high-gloss shade, perhaps … oh, and it would definitely use a low-energy globe. Yes, more than ever, lighting design is creative and considered, with many designers making a name for themselves with their lighting creations alone. But lighting isn’t all form and function. Many countries have banned or are in the process of phasing out traditional incandescent bulbs due to their energy inefficiency. This has given rise to new technologies such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), LEDs and even curious things called quantum dots. It’s meant a new age of lighting design, one that is experimental and cutting edge. The lamps featured in this book (and there are more than two hundred of them!) are supported by endless full-colour photographs. Some of the best include Laetitia Florin’s open-book-like table lamp; Christian Haas’s design of tiny globes fitted deep within the threads of a hanging, knotted rope; and Pepe Heykoop’s child-like creation that uses coloured wooden building blocks to create the arms of a chandelier. An index at the back of the book lists each light, its designer, specifications and a short blurb about its design and the technology it uses. Lux is inspiring reading – a catalogue of the world’s best work in this field – and also an archive of lighting design in the early twenty-first century.
Gestalten, 2011 320 PP $70.
