How can you make light visible?
Arne Jacobsen AJ Lamp (1960)
You may have heard the phrase ‘form follows function’, but this does not describe well what is going on here. It’s rather the opposite: The form expresses the function. It does not follow, it leads. It shows where the light beam is intended to throw it’s cone of light, and the circular base even features a round hole as if it would have been burnt in it by the light rays. Originally, that place accommodated an ashtray. The brilliant Danish architect and designer, who as early as in the 1920’s proposed a house with new window mechanisms, a mail conveyor tube and, next to car and boat in the garage, a small helicopter on the roof, was influenced by Art Deco, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, famous architects themselves from the era. His approach to creation was all-encompassing. When commissioned as architect for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, he designed the building, the furniture, even the items in the gift shop, the airport shuttle buses and also, this angle-adjustable lamp, which is produced in a table and a floor version and has been named after him.
#iconix #design #icon #arnejacobsen