Lux Redux: Euroluce 2013 – Part I
We may live in somewhat gloomy times, but this year’s confident edition of Euroluce – the biennial international lighting showcase at the Milan Salone del Mobile – shone brighter than an old-fashioned 100-Watt light bulb.
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Por FontanaArte, LUCEPLAN, Showroom Finland Oy y
abril 22, 2013 | 10:00 pm CUT
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There’s something contradictory about lighting design.
It occupies itself with the giving of form to objects whose primary purpose, as sources of illumination, is to produce something immaterial and without substance: light. The result of this function is, however, to allow us a greater legibility of our everyday environment, to see more – and, by extension, to see more objects. Lighting, you could argue, is the most fundamental object type within the designed material landscape, aiding as it does a greater sensory perception of what lies around us.
The senses were certainly fully engaged at the recent 2013 edition of Euroluce – its 27th – the international biennale for lighting manufacturing that rides pillion with the Milan Salone del Mobile, offering as it did a confident and exhaustive product presentation. Four halls at the Milan fairgrounds saw well over 300 exhibitors – both big-name brands and smaller labels, as well as designer-producers – show a proliferation of technologically led, formally bold lights and lighting systems for a range of interior and exterior applications, in both contract and domestic contexts.
It comes as little surprise that LED – with all its rapidly changing technological possibilities – was to be found everywhere, the responses to just what to do with such a creative opportunity as diverse as the multitude of LED-element products that have hit the market of late. Rethink the way lamps should look, moving beyond existing typologies, or retro-fit existing, much-loved designs with LED? Both avenues seemed to be explored by exhibitors at Euroluce.
Strong formal design statements were much in evidence – this certainly wasn’t a fair characterised by discretion – with emphatic, quasi-sculptural forms of lamps counterbalancing the reduction in the size of the lighting elements themselves, while there was a strong presence of outdoor lighting products.
Meanwhile, a number of exhibitors presented designs by internationally renowned architects, which serve, among other things, as stylistic continuations of their recognisable signature design vocabularies. The mutual benefits to such collaborations are clear. And perhaps it’s a sign of the somewhat straitened times that we live in that a number of manufacturers exhibited systems that were to a greater or lesser extent modular. Buy now. Add to later.
Illuminating stuff.
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Modularity / Configurability
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Lighting programmes that permit a range of configuration options, with the possibility of their expansion and adaptation built into their design from the outset, could be found at many of Euroluce’s stands this year, suggesting a growing need, perhaps informed by the current air of economic caution, for products that work as a long-term investment. The use of smaller LED lighting elements helps, of course, to deliver a greater degree of flexibility when it comes to designing such lighting systems.
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Sculptural forms
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There was little that was shy and retiring about a lot of the products on show at Euroluce this year. A sign that, beyond Europe at least, the construction sector is still in good health, with architects and planners specifying confident lighting pieces for new interiors, bold, somewhat sculptural forms drew the design-loving crowds.
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Galería de proyectos
