The design object hoarding all the spotlight? Lights

The Boalum lamp remains Italian architect and designer Gianfranco Frattini’s defining legacy, slithering across his 50-year-long career and even beyond his death. But it wasn’t the one that launched him as a bright new lighting designer. That was Model 597, released in 1961, debuting almost a decade earlier when the mid-century modern aesthetic was at its peak. Featuring a nylon fringe hanging from an aluminium cover, screening an array of lateral bulbs emitting 360 degrees of indirect light, it was inspired by the fringed curtains seen in Italian bars in the 1950s. It was also an early example of Frattini’s focus on the “fifth elevation”—the ceiling—and his ethos of total design.    

Minimal yet arresting (and still in production), the Model 597 made an appearance in Mumbai last month, sitting coyly next to beige bubble couches at Scandinavian design house Gubi’s booth at India Design ID Mumbai. Like the svelte bar crooner with top billing, it got its fair share of attention, but it was far from the only one. 

As anyone who walked into Jio Gardens that weekend can attest, big design houses unveiling their new collections seemed to narrow in on lights to spotlight their showcase. There were jujubes-like wall lights from French brand YMER&MALTA to amoeba-shaped stone lights from Indian design brand, Abner, and it seemed all around, the most arresting design pieces were lamps, chandeliers, pendants, totem poles, and collectible objects that glowed from within, in every possible material from leather, brass and marble to wicker, ceramic, papier-mâché and concrete. 

Meanwhile, over at Nilaya Anthology, 23 designers showcased unique collectible candlestands as part of Gathering of Light, where the pieces variously channelled the delicateness of bidri, the nimbleness of South African beadwork, the humility of terracotta diyas, and the versatility of brass in industrial design. It made us wonder: Has lighting design in India finally entered its collectible era?

“It does look like lighting might be in focus,” agrees Nitin Barchha, architect, product designer, and founder of Studio Material Immaterial. “And the reason might lie in patronage. We’re all building homes and offices, and everyone may not have budgets for art, but they would have kept some aside for lighting. If you think about it, it’s a really huge opening for what kinds of lights are possible in that space.” 

No longer the halogen lamp of your grandparents, Barchha’s own new series, Luminocity, brings artificial light into his signature concrete architectural objects that have, for years, been built to explore the play of light and shadow. In the ‘Sphere’ table lamp, for instance, a bulb sits at its base emitting light that peaks through miniature cupolas and the oculus. The ‘Bazaar’ pendant lamp is inspired by the markets of Old Delhi and Bora Bazaar in Mumbai, where buildings jut out over the streets as they go higher, scarred by small slivers of light. “You will not see this form of architecture in any of the new buildings,” he says. “There is a mystery in these spaces, and through my work I want to revive the experience of such spaces.” 

At ID Mumbai, interior decorator and product designer Ravi Vazirani had a queue of lamps dotting his stall. “A city like Mumbai hasn’t had a lamp culture,” he tells me. “In my design journey, when we have designed homes for people who’ve moved to Bombay, we find they are horrified by the amount of architectural lighting that we propose, because anywhere else in this country spaces are larger. That’s been the biggest challenge here: no space, so no need, and hence no products.”

When Vazirani began to design lamps, he sought to create pieces that were individual and timeless, aligned with his focus on “design that ages with you”. There are many such objects in his latest series, ‘Objects in Focus’, which features Art Deco-inspired geometric wall sconces and table lamps in brass, marble, ceramic, and papier-mâché. “The market for design in India has grown and that allows a lot of opportunity to the consumer, the maker, and consequently to us designers,” says Vazirani, who worked with artisans from Rajasthan and Kashmir, among others, for this collection.

There’s a reason objects as ubiquitous as lamps are breaching the “collectible” line—they’re bridging the gap between art and design.

“The functionality of a lighting object elevates its enveloping form and makes the object a functional piece of art,” observes Manju Sara Saran, founder of Bengaluru-based design studio Kaash. For India Design ID Mumbai’s Neo Deco segment—a special showcase curated by fair director Misha Bains to celebrate 100 years of the Art Deco movement—Kaash presented ‘Ladder Light’, Italian designer Andrea Anastasio’s standalone light sculpture in which craftsman Raja Babu layers Dharmavaram leather, invoking the Tholu Bommalata craft of leather puppetry and bringing alive the drama of light and shadow. “Lighting design demands a respect for material and an appreciation for shadows, for the abstract as well as the practical,” says Saran. “It is reassuring that in a lifestyle culture that is still overwhelmed by white sterile bulbs, an increasing band of consumers are willing to invest in something poetic and sublime, where the object has the power to shape the space but does it quietly and powerfully.”

Today, there is seemingly no dearth of options, whatever be your aesthetic. Love monochrome and earthy materials at your studio? Find your pendant lamps and totem poles at Harshita Jhamtani Designs. Want a giant sculptural cocoon in bamboo suspended from the ceiling of your Goan villa? Head over to The Wicker Story. Got room for a classic floor lamp in your Jaipur penthouse but want something with an Indian modern twist of sabai grass and dhokra? Try This & That’s ‘Niraba’ collection with Boito. Need something iconic in your entrance hallway for conversation starters? Source The Vernacular Modern’s Chamra Deepa. Have a corner free for a floor-to-ceiling light sculpture? Olie Living’s ‘Flowers for Your Soul’ collection is likely to stun you like Alice in Wonderland.

“This series is like a balm—a soft place to rest, a refuge for beauty,” says Amrita Nambiar, founder of Olie. Born out of a dark time in her life, this series features reimagined lily ponds, tall wildflower bouquets, a garden of metallic leaves where dew drops glow in fabric. 

Those interested in something more than purely decorative should consider the multifunctionality of the Fat Stack Light by designer Rehan Parikh. Is it a stool? A side table? A lighting object? It is all of the above, a thing he has practically manifested from his mind into real life, working with makrana marble and wood to further explore the soft curves and girth of this form he has been fascinated with for the last three years. “The Fat Stack Light is one of three iterations (the others are a side table and a cushioned stool),” says the founder of Bombay Design Lab, “and this was my first time working with light. I don’t really love alabaster or onyx—I find they are overdone in lights—so I chose to play with Makrana marble. It’s quite a process, because it’s not as translucent or opaque as alabaster or onyx, so the inside of the block is carved out and the thickness is 12 to 13mm with rows of LED lights inside. I’m exploring more shapes for this stack now, and I’ll maybe build a bar counter with it.”

Lighting, once masked and hidden, shining furtively or complementing the room’s aesthetic like a trusty sidekick, now has the main character energy to light up a space. In fact, Barchha advises that you start thinking about it architecturally: “One stunning piece in the house is important, but at the same time, several smaller interesting pieces that offer some dim light while being interesting objects can set the mood,” he says.

None of these are options you weigh for your child’s study room or as contenders to hang over your makeup mirror. What they are is attention-hogging fixtures: dramatic and atmospheric in a way it’s possible to get lost in its appeal momentarily. Barchha adds, “If you’re lying on your bed, to watch the reflections, the shadows, the silhouettes that come up as light and darkness play... that’s intriguing.”