Bauhaus lighting: form follows function in glass and metal
How a small metal workshop in Weimar and Dessau turned the electric lamp into a clear, honest object, and how to live with Bauhaus light today.
9 articles
Styles & Eras
Bauhaus, Scandinavian, Italian, Art Deco and more.
From the Bauhaus metal workshop to Italian lighting of the 1960s, from Scandinavian softness to the calm of Japanese paper light: the great styles of lighting design and how to bring them into a home today.
Scandinavian lighting: soft light for long winters
Why Danish and Finnish designers became masters of warm, glare free light, and how to bring the Nordic way of lighting into your own home.
Italian lighting design: the golden age of the 1960s and 1970s
How Milan’s designers and manufacturers turned the lamp into sculpture, experiment and wit in the postwar decades, and how to live with their icons today.
Japanese inspired lighting: calm, paper and shadow
What Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, paper lanterns and wabi-sabi can teach you about low, warm, quiet light, and how to create a calm light scene at home.
Art Deco lighting: glamour in glass and metal
Geometric glass, chrome and brass: how the lighting of the 1920s and 1930s brought glamour to liners, hotels and homes, and how to use Deco style lighting today.
Mid-century modern lighting: the lamps of the 1950s and 1960s
Teak, brass, enamel and shades that soften the bulb: why the lamps of the 1950s and 1960s still feel fresh, and how to live with them today.
Space age lighting: plastic, chrome and the future of 1969
Glowing globes, mushroom domes and gleaming chrome: how the race to the Moon shaped the boldest lamps of the 1960s, and how to live with them today.
Minimalist lighting: less fitting, more light
Hidden sources, trimless downlights and one sculptural lamp: how minimalism in lighting puts the quality of light before the number of fittings, without leaving rooms cold.
Mediterranean lighting: light for villas in the south
Whitewashed walls, rattan pendants, lanterns and long evenings outdoors: how to light a southern villa so that it stays cool by day and glows warmly at night.
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