Simply radiant: Egoluce Lancia

“Delete, delete, delete,” said legendary designer Achille Castiglioni of his reductive approach to creating sophisticated products that strip everything unnecessary away, leaving only the most essential elements. Subsequent generations of designers have attempted to apply Castiglioni’s mantra in their own work, but many have fallen short in their pursuit of purity and simplification. Another great thinker of Italian art and design, Bruno Munari, summed up the challenge in his quote: “Everybody is able to complicate. Only a few can simplify.”

Since its beginnings in 1978, Italian lighting brand Egoluce has been influenced by Castiglioni’s oeuvre and, with its Lancia lamp, can claim to have achieved a form that is genuinely reduced to its very essence. The concept behind the minimalistic linear design was to create a contemporary lighting product that offers excellent illumination alongside affordability, flexibility and ease of installation. Lancia uses the latest technologies to achieve a delicate form which is capable of providing targeted or ambient light. The result is a unique product that is both sculptural and practical.

Lancia epitomises Egoluce’s approach to developing lighting solutions that draw on Italy’s heritage of creativity and quality manufacturing. Throughout the past four decades the firm has created products that blend technological expertise with artisanal tradition. It uses premium components and materials to manufacture light fixtures of the highest standard that are worthy of the ‘Made in Italy’ mark.

The Lancia lamp’s minimal aesthetic is made possible by combining contemporary LED technology with an aluminium profile measuring just 1.8 centimetres in diameter. The precisely engineered metal form houses a strip of LED bulbs that is covered with an opal methacrylate diffuser. Together with a high pitch of 84 LEDs per metre, this produces a uniform light without any unattractive light gaps. The 18-Watt-per-metre LED strip also emits a functional amount of light with a superior colour rendering index (CRI) to ensure an attractive illumination.

Lancia’s pared-back design offers great versatility and has been applied to a family of light fixtures that share the same simple style. The different products can be used to meet a variety of needs in either domestic or commercial contexts. Floor-standing versions occupy space like slender statues, suspension lamps create lines of light floating in mid air, and fixtures mounted on walls or ceilings can be used to wash surfaces with light or direct it where it is needed. C-shaped clips used to hold the lamps in position allow the light source to be easily rotated and repositioned to provide direct or indirect lighting, which further enhances the product’s versatility.

Fittingly, the suspended, adjustable version of the Lancia lamp is called the ‘Lancia di Achille’ in tribute to the maverick designer. Its simple mechanism for sliding up and down a steel cable recalls the Parentesi lamp created by Castiglioni and Pio Manzù in 1971. Like its predecessor, the Lancia di Achille requires only friction and gravity to hold it in place, and can be easily adjusted by sliding or rotating the light source to direct illumination wherever it is needed. Its compact dimensions and ease of installation mean it is also suitable for use in small spaces and corners where other lighting solutions would not fit.

The Lancia collection is the result of a thorough process of research and development involving design, technology and engineering that has resulted in a simple and essential object. As with many of Castiglioni’s iconic designs, the product fulfils the fundamental requirements of a light fitting in a novel and intelligent way. Reducing the lamp to the bare minimum – a light source, a diffuser and a carefully crafted housing – also lends it a universal appeal that means it is suited to any environment. What could be more simple?

© Architonic