Figures of Light

Superloon, Flos

The bright full moon of Jasper Morrison’s Superloon exudes a perfect dimmable, flattering light. The inspiration for the lamp comes from the technology that makes it possible: LED “Edge Lighting” that sends the light sideways across Superloon’s translucent white disc to stunning effect. “Mounting the disc on a gyroscopic axis sends the light in infinite directions. The light it gives out is broad and diffused but can be dimmed to a soft glow,” Jasper says. $5,550

Arco, Flos

Brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni designed Arco for Flos in 1962, and it came to define what a floor lamp should look like. The inspiration for the light comes from streetlights but reimagined for the home with Carrara marble and stainless steel. The marble base is precisely engineered so the lamp can stand on a minimal footprint, with beveled corners to minimize the pain of hitting a shin on it, and with a perfectly located hole to stick a broom handle through so two people can easily carry the lamp, balanced, to its location in the home. $3,925

Chiara, Flos

Designing the Chiara lamp in 1969, Mario Bellini was inspired by deflected natural light brightening spaces. “Instead of saying, ‘Let’s design a lamp,’ I said, ‘Let’s design an apparatus that can take light from an artificial source and send it back into our surroundings with a certain intelligence and grace,’” he says. Mario cut a shape on a piece of card and folded it into a cylinder with a hat modeled after a nun’s veil. With some refinement (and a transition to stainless steel), Chiara was born. $3,125

Wo-Tum-Bu 2, Ingo Maurer

Traditional handcraft transforms Japanese paper into the delicate, cocoon-like Wo-Tum-Bu lamp designed by Ingo Maurer and paper artist Dagmar Mombach. The paper is formed through an elaborate eight-step dyeing process and rolled into a form reminiscent of the organic and soft sculptures of artist Isamu Noguchi. The layered glow is textured and entirely individual, each paper shade slightly different from the next thanks to the handmade manufacturing process. $2,199

IC Lights Floor, Flos

The IC Lights Floor is an example of how softness and rigid geometry can create a satisfying tension in a light fixture. The opaline glass sphere diffuser sits atop its arm in a delicate balance akin to the moment a contact juggler’s ball hovers at the tip of his fingers. The resulting lamps are called IC in reference to the identity code used to evaluate immigrants entering the UK. $1,155