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ELEMENT 1
ELEMENT 3
The idea for YaYaHo (1984) came in a flash, follo-
wing a New Year’s celebration in Haiti, where
Maurer saw how locals solder lightbulbs onto
overhead power cords to illuminate street fairs. It
took four years to perfect the system of suspen-
ding halogen reflectors from tautly strung low-
voltage cables, and the effort almost bankrupted
his company. Contemporaneous to his research,
another designer, Hannes Wettstein, developed a
similar concept and both were widely plagiarized.
However, the rip-offs lack the precision and
artistry of the 276-part system. YaYaHo allows the
user to adjust the height and placement of each
suspended element as well as the tiny mirrors that
bounce the light. “I want things to look unfinished,
and to leave space for the people who use or look
at them to add something of themselves,“ says
Maurer. Critic Deyan Sudjic thought that YaYaHo
“subverts the glossy mechanical perfection that
characterizes so-called modern lighting,“ providing
a sparkle and dazzle that take one back to the
flutter of candlelight.
Michael Webb, 2003
ELEMENT 4