<nettime> Lamps that could enlighten the masses: Van de Nieuwelaar 1968 & Joe Colombo 1962

[Tjebbe van Tijen via Chello <t.tijen@chello.nl>]

Lamps that could enlighten the masses: Van de Nieuwelaar 1968 & Joe Colombo
1962

September 26, 2010 by Tjebbe van Tijen

the illustrated article with links can be found at
http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/lamps-that-could-enlighten-the-masses-van-de-nieuwelaar-1968-joe-colombo-1962/


[picture of the two lamps from 1968 & 1962)

Newspaper read this morning: Dutch designer Aldo van de Nieuwelaar (1944-2010)
died and I did not remember his name, but when I saw one of his designs de TC6
lamp from 1968 I immediately remembered it for its elegant austerity? Always
had a sensitivity for industrial design which finds it base in living in a
commune with three industrial design students early sixties, so another lamp
was switched on in my memory by the Milano designer Joe Colombo (1930-1971): a
piece of bended plexiglass transporting the source of light through its
sculptural curve, designed in 1962. I well remember me visiting his studio in
1965 when I was a young student in Milano and being introduced to him because I
wanted to use plexiglass for one of my sculptures. I needed to bend a fat slab
of plexiglass and Colombo knew how that could be done and where.

Both lamp designs were meant for a mass market and not for the happy few. At
that time there was this utopian view of nice and sincere industrial products
to literally ?enlighten? the living spaces of everyone? alas they can only be
found now as ?vintage designs? in exclusive shops of specialised dealers and in
design museum? or?  Well I should scout for them for my own home but only at a
non speculative price for an industrial product (time for a study how mass
products are ?exclusified? in the vintage design market) ? untll found as a
homage to the good intention of these designers a twin picture of their lamps?

Tjebbe van Tijen


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