Design Feature: Artemide
Artemide was founded in the 1960s by Ernest Gismondi and Dergio Mazza and has had a huge impact on international design. From their first lamp, Alfa, in 1959, to the recent IN-EI Collection by Issey Miyake, Artemide are always looking forward with their designs, creating innovative and high quality products that will add a stylish sophistication to your home. With their work being showcased in most modern art museums as well as in prestigious furniture and illumination stores worldwide, Artemide have well established their unique style.
Over the years, Artemide have produced an eclectic series of pieces, varying from collections that ooze modernity to collections that have more of a soft and retro feel. Perhaps one of their most iconic creations is the extremely sophisticated Tolomeo range, designed by Michelle De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina. This best-selling collection exudes a simplistic elegance and will add a touch of class to any room.
The Tolomeo Mega Terra Floor Lamp, shown above, boasts its striking cantilevered arms and base in polished aluminium, ideal to help renovate a dated space into a stylishly contemporary vision. Similarly, the Tolomeo Table Lamp has a strong, almost mechanical aesthetic yet its parchment paper shade softens its overall look, adding a stunning elegance. The pieces in this collection are adjustable, enabling you to light the room however you please. This functionality, especially in the wall light, makes for a very practical addition to your home.
Exemplifying Artemide’s famously contemporary and sleek style perfectly is the Vigo collection, designed by David Chipperfield. The Vigo lamp takes inspiration from a traditional style lamp, which involves a light source within a conical form. However, its innovative pairing of black metal to form the inner cone and transparent hand-blown borosilicate glass to create the outer cone make for a beautifully fresh contrast. The shade stunningly directs and diffuses the light to bring a fantastic glow to any room while radiating class. The Vigo lamp comes in three formats: a suspended ceiling lamp, wall lamp or floor lamp.
The classic design of the Eclisse Table Light, created in 1967, hasn’t lost any style despite being nearly fifty years old. Designer Vico Magistretti, a founding father of Italian design, joined forces with Artemide many times, but his first design with them, the Eclisse Light, remains a popular lamp. The painted steel metal, which is available in four colour options, creates a reflective and smooth surface, exuding a casual class. Its small size along with its clever and practical rotating inner shade, which can gradually eclipse the bulb to alter the amount of light diffused, make this lamp ideal for the bedroom.
Both the Eclisse range and the Dalù collection demonstrate Vico Magistretti’s distinct style as a designer. Taking inspiration from his own 1960s design, Luminaire, Magistretti created the Dalù Table Lamp, a modernised successor that retains much of the original design, including the globe like shade. Made from moulded thermoplastic material and available in four colour options, this lamp is ideal for brightening up a contemporary room.
At The Longest Stay we know it’s better to see lighting at work – Artemide’s lights can be seen here in the images from the Old Town Chambers Hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Melampo Table Lamp and Tolomeo Mega Terra Floor Lamp light the living room and the bedroom, helping to create stunning rooms oozing with elegance and style. The Tolomeo Mega Terra Lamp acts as a perfect reading lamp, adjusted to lean over the chair so the reader won’t have any annoying shadows on their book. The Melampo Table Lamp works fantastically in both the living room and bedroom, their tilted shades adding a romantic ambience to the bedroom especially.
Artemide flaunts a stunning collection of lighting that will improve your home, it’s just a case of finding the pieces that perfectly suit your style!
