Design Icons - Artemide Eclisse Table Lamp

 

Post-war Italian architect Vico Magistretti switched to urban design in the 1950s and created the Eclisse, (Italian for eclipse, which describes the mechanism of the mechanical dimmer) for the Italian lighting company Artemide in 1967.

The Eclisse lamp is a combination of round shapes, simple surfaces and brightly coloured lacquered metal which gives it a feel of the era which it helped usher in. 

Operationally, the intelligence  is in the way the lamp allows precise, mechanical control of the illumination. By turning the inner globe to expose more or less of its cut away side the amount of light could go from full glare bare bulb to subtle background lighting. With the inner globe completely closed the lighting appears around the edges, like the corona around the moon’s shadow in a full solar eclipse.

The Eclisse was awarded a Compasso d'Oro design award in 1967. It’s shape and styling was hugely influential on product design of the late sixties and early seventies.

Unlike many of the design icons in this series, the brightly bodied Eclisse somehow looks out of place in the modern world, even with its sparse, functional shaping. It is a product of its time. Artemide still sells a version today, however it is offered in a much more muted range of colours and even metallic finishes, which help it better fit the world of today.

See other design icons here.