Danish architect and designer Poul Henningsen’s interest in light and lighting started at a young age when as a child in the 1900s, he observed the sharp glare from fixtures housing bare electric bulbs in his family home. Electric lighting was new, and older lighting devices, such as candlesticks or gas lamps, were being adapted...
In celebration of our new exhibition The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post explores the multisensory experience of an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. The invention of the incandescent light bulb in the nineteenth century not only advanced technology, but also design, especially into the twentieth century. This bulbous, blown...
As I write this blog entry it is cold, and growing colder outside, and this lamp, which looks like it is covered with snow, caught my eye. On first sight it appears to be a snow globe, with the snow on the outside. This globular lamp, however, was designed in 1999 by noted Italian architect...
Russian-born designer Alexander Gelman worked in the United States during the 1990s and early 2000s. His simple icons strive not so much to capture the essence of a subject, but rather to offer an off-kilter view of it. Here, a table lamp represents a poetry reading. The illustration is, one might say, beside the point....
Designer Suzanne Tick has shown that design can be functional, sustainable, innovative, and aesthetically pleasing. For example, in a recent video made on the occasion of Earth Day, Tick wove interesting colorful textiles using foil balloons recovered from the beach, as well as wire hangers discarded by the dry cleaners. In creating this hanging lamp,...
It is very comforting to come home in the evening and turn on a light. ideally, it is not a fluorescent hanging from the ceiling. something soft and gentle. something to welcome in the night. something with a dimmer switch to modulate the mood. i love light bulbs. they tell a very straightforward story. they...
Tour Eiffel Lamp. Designed by Studio Job, 2012. Carpenters Workshop Gallery. (Image from http://art.sy/artwork/studio-job-tour-eiffel-lamp.) The work of Dutch design firm Studio Job is at once humorous, witty, and ironic, heavy on ornament and always well-crafted. Without fail, I am intrigued to see what they come up with next as an expression of contemporary decorative arts. At...
This September, Switch Lightbulbs will launch its twenty-first-century version of the ubiquitous incandescent bulb, which is slated to be phased out in the United States starting in 2012, according to the Energy Independence and Security Act authorized in Congress in 2007. The Switch LED bulb looks similar to the classic screw-in, but features some significant...
Japanese Landscape in the Snow I was delighted by this New Year’s card from Takeshi Ishiguro in Tokyo. On the front was an image of a snow covered landscape, with one of those crisp blue skies that only seem to visit Japan when it’s cold. The card came in an envelope, as the postage stamps...
