A wonderful floor lamp by Gae Aulenti, made in Italy in the 1970s. The lamp was designed by Gaetana Aulenti in 1969 and production of this lamp ran throughout the 1970s. The design of this lamp still looks contemporary by today’s standards. When it was designed and revealed in 1969 it was way ahead of its time and the already much lauded Gaetana Aulenti (one of only two female designers graduating out of the Milan Polytechnic in 1954) was once again praised for her avant-garde approach to design. The design is very simple: a cylindrical body beneath a large opaque glass ball. It pre-dates by almost half a century the industrial design look which is so popular today and it is a fantastic piece or mid-century furniture.

Gaetana Aulenti (known as Gae Aulenti, born 4 December 1927, died 31 October 2012) was an Italian architect and designer who was active in furniture design, graphic design, stage design, lighting design and interior design. She was known for her contributions to the design of important museums such as the Musee D’Orsay in Paris (in collaboration with ACT Architecture), the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the restoration of Palazzo Grassi in Venice and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Aulenti was one of only a few women architects and designers who gained notoriety in their own right during the post-war period in Italy, where Italian designers sought to make meaningful connections to production principles, and influenced culture far beyond Italy. This avant-garde design movement blossomed into an entirely new type of architecture and design, one full of imaginary utopias leaving standardization to the past.

Aulenti's involvement in the Milan design scene of the 1950s and 1960s formed her into an architect respected for her analytical abilities to navigate metropolitan complexity no matter the medium. Her conceptual development can be followed in the design magazine Casabella, to which she contributed regularly.

Bibliography:
Catalogue Artemide Studio A, 1976, pages 48-49.
G. Gramigna, Repertorio del Design Italiano 1950 - 2000: per l'Arredamento Domestico, Vol. 1, Turin, Edizioni Umberto Allemandi, 2003, page 164.
G. Gramigna, 1950/1980 Repertorio, Milan, Edizioni Mondadori, 1985, page 302.

Condition: minor wear and tear to the metal base, very minor chips to the base of the glass (hidden from sight), please refer to photographs

Dimensions: Height: 140cm high, 48cm wide, 48cm deep