2014 is shaping up to be quite a year for design brand Kartell, marking the company's 65th birthday but also the 10th anniversary of one of its most famous pieces: Ferruccio Laviani's Bourgie table lamp.
The Milan-based designer, who has been working as Kartell's in-house art director for over 20 years, designed the light in 2004 responding to the brief of creating 'an important lamp'. Inspiration came from an old fixture sitting on his desk and a 1970s disco song by Ashford & Simpson repeating 'Everybody wants to be bourgie bourgie' in reference to the wannabe bourgeoisie. The result features the silhouette of a classic table lamp, rendered in what the Italian company does best: plastic. Transparent and tongue-in-cheek, the Bourgie represents an important time in the company's history of experimentation with the material.
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To celebrate the milestone, the now-iconic piece was handed over to friends and collaborators from the design world, ranging from Nendo to Patricia Urquiola, from Mario Bellini to Philippe Starck (by way of Lenny Kravitz). The 14 one-off designs are currently on display at Kartell's Paris flagship on Boulevard Saint-Germain, after which they will turn into a travelling exhibition for the rest of the year before being auctioned online (with the proceeds going to charity).
The collection is both a tribute to the now-iconic piece and to the sharing of ideas that is very much at the base of Kartell's credo: cross-pollination is key, and the enthusiastic interpretations merge the designers' personal tribute to Laviani with their own design vision and style.
Nendo's design comes in pairs, the space between two lamps recreating an upside-down silhouette of the original, as seen from this sketch
Nendo's design is one of a series of pieces created by leading international designers to celebrate the Bourgie's 10th anniversary. The one-off creations are currently on display at Kartell's Paris flagship on Boulevard Saint-Germain, after which they will turn into a travelling exhibition for the rest of the year before being auctioned online (with the proceeds going to charity)
'The future is a present from the past' is the message that Patrick Jouin decided to spell out in block capital letters on the lampshade of his matte black Bourgie
Patricia Urquiola's interpretation plays a dual role: the designer took apart the lamp's base and reshaped it into a hanging fixture, both as an iconic memory of its design and also to playfully recall the shape of a carousel
Swedish design trio Front melted the stand of the Bourgie to reshape it into a reading light in the form of a humorous character peeking over a reader's shoulder
In architect Mario Bellini's hands, the Bourgie tripled up as a coat and umbrella stand. He commented: 'nothing is created ... everything is transformed'
'The light sparks as if a star shines,' said Tokujin Yoshioka about his design, which was faithful to the original Bourgie and bore the designer's autograph on one side of the lampshade
Piero Lissoni's Bourgie is as an oversized paper version of the original, his inspiration coming from a documentary on Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, in which the director commissions a giant paper city set for one of his films
Alberto Meda created a minimal stand for the Bourgie, calling his interpretation a 'return to the future'
Ludovica+Roberto Palomba considered the design process behind the original lamp and stripped it back to its sketch state, producing a silhouette in iron wire and projecting its lines with a multi-coloured bulb
Christophe Pillet covered the lamp in a layer of black felt, enhancing its shapes and details
Philippe Starck visited flea markets, street vendors and small shops to gather a collection of colourful plastic bracelets, charms and chains, which he used to dress up the Bourgie
Rodolfo Dordoni made a rendition of the piece's base in iron (the abbreviation of Ferruccio and the Italian word for iron, Ferro, being his nickname of choice for Laviani)
Eugeni Quitllet celebrated the lamp's anniversary by turning it into a cake, with 10 candle-shaped bulbs emerging from its lampshade
The flame-like bulbs of Quitllet's design
ADDRESS
242 Boulevard Saint-Germain
75007 Paris
France
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