Simplicity of design

23 May 2011

Lighting designer Admir Jukanovic reveals the classic lighting products that continue to inspire his creativity

When London-based lighting designer Admir Jukanovic has had enough of thumbing through catalogues of contemporary lighting products, he turns to two books on his shelf that always inspire him: the two volumes of 1,000 Lights, a compendium published by Taschen of 1,000 landmarks in luminaire design from 1879 until 2004.

An Art Nouveau table lamp, Bauhaus-built wall fitting or Pop Art-era floor light may suggest a better solution to a problem than anything devised in the past few years.

“When there have been important developments in lighting products throughout history, the new designs are not just based on new technology,” says Jukanovic, an associate at Mindseye. “They are often produced in relation to other cultural contexts in the period.” One of his favourite examples is the hanging light created by Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld in 1922, a product of De Stijl, the avant-garde art and design movement characterised by vertical and horizontal lines at right angles.

“Rietveld’s luminaire is just a simple arrangement of glass tube lights, which are hung independently in space at right angles next to each other. One or two are horizontal, one are two are vertical. I cannot think of anything more literal to show how a lighting designer can hang lights in a beautiful way. It is less an arrangement, more an ensemble.”

Additional elements

Jukanovic also highlights a luminaire still in production by Italian manufacturer FontanaArte, the Fontana 1853 table light from 1954. “The designer Max Ingrand adapted this luminaire from a blown-glass vase which would have normally been used for flowers.” Ingrand added a glass shade on top of the vase. In the vase he sequestered a light bulb; in the shade he sequestered two. “You can turn on one circuit and illuminate the base, or you can turn on either of the other two in the shade. The one in the shade turns the object into a table desk lamp, and the other, which is at the very top, turns it into an uplighter.”

This extra functionality is normally hard to come by. “At Mindseye we are often seeking something that has an extra element or function, and we have to ask the manufacturer to make a bespoke alteration to an existing product. But in this luminaire from back in the 1950s the extra functionality is part of the design. It’s absolutely timeless.

“And if you switch all three lights on,” Jukanovic adds, “it illuminates the whole object’s surface very evenly. That is something we are always trying to do, to illuminate a panel or another shape specifically and perfectly.”

Fast-forward to 1978 and another seminal work stands out for the designer, the Kuta table light invented by Italian Vico Magistretti. “What I really love about the Kuta is its simplicity. It comprises a light bulb that sits on a vertical rod supported on a marble base, and then in front of the bulb on one side is a vertical metal disc.” On the side facing the bulb the disc is white, but it is black on the side the viewer sees. When the luminaire is placed next to a wall, the light is blocked by the disc and is only visible around its circular rim. “It almost resembles a lunar eclipse, as if the moon was in front of the sun and you can see the corona.”

Jukanovic describes how designer Ingo Maurer had the idea for his famous Ya Ha Ho halogen lighting system when in Haiti on New Year’s Eve in the early 1980s. In a village square, he encountered bulbs soldered directly on to the electric cables that extended from building to building.

Back in Munich, he and his team created a safe, low-voltage version so a variety of light elements could be draped over a charged metal wire. The designer thusexposed the functional parts of a lighting system - the wires that are normally hidden - to memorable effect.

“Soon after its launch in 1984 lots of people imitated Maurer and did a really bad job - I grew up with a lot of those lights and they’re not very nicely designed. But the original system is absolutely stunning and still in production. While his imitators screw the fittings to the wire, Maurer just loosely hangs them over in a carefully considered way.”

This encourages Jukanovic to take the same care when arranging a fitting. “If you just put it there, it doesn’t really work. It needs context, it needs to be well thought through, and there are lots of factors that you must take into account.”

Back to basics

Another notable Maurer-manufactured product is Fly Candle Fly, devised in 1996 by Austrian George Baldele who, like Jukanovic, trained at the Royal College of Art.

“If you ask a group of lighting designers what their favourite light is, I think probably half will say the candle. And this luminaire is just a candle that hangs on two thin steel wires. It is held in a transparent base that captures the wax as it melts.

“It has been adapted by other lighting designers, who place lots of candles hanging within a space. They appear to be almost mystically, magically floating there in space - when you are further away, you don’t realise they are suspended by wire. That’s something that I’m always after when I design a space. You want someone to enter and enjoy the way a space is lit, and then think to themselves, ‘hang on a minute, how does that actually work?’”

Mindseye took inspiration from Maurer’s XXL Dome hanging lights, brought into production in 1999, for a retail project. They are 2m-diameter hemispherical fibreglass shades, enamelled on the inside surface in a fluorescent colour. The metal prototypes were twice the size, and designed for the platform of a Munich subway station.

“What’s so striking about this luminaire,” says Jukanovic, “is its large dimension, and how that dimension can change the perspective of the space. We took it as inspiration for the lighting we did for the retailer Spirit in Selfridges. We didn’t use that specific XXL Dome product, because we needed another size, so, believe it or not, we created our own from septic tanks, which was cost-effective and quick. We cut them in half and finished them nicely inside.

“They are really eye-catching within that retail space and really help define it from others on the floor. And you have almost two spaces: one looking at them from outside, and one when you’re standing under one. It separates you off with the light and acoustic it creates.”

● Admir Jukanovic was talking to Sam Philips