A contemporary lantern to travel through two centuries of history. Candela is the lamp with
surprising and unexpected technology designed by Francisco Gomez Paz, but it is also a time
machine that inverts the past with the future by combining the oldest and most modern forms
of lighting in one piece. Conceived to perpetuate the tradition of Scandinavian oil lanterns,
Candela (candle in Italian) is a synthesis of technology, sustainability and timeless rituals.
Using the intuition of Thomas Johann Seebeck, who in 1821 discovered the way to generate
electricity from the heat of a smokeless fire, the lamp works with the flame generated by the
combustion of bioethanol which, in turn, ignites the LED light diffused by a lighting body in
mouth-blown glass entirely made in Italy. The internal battery, charged by the flame, recharges
smartphones or other electronic devices.
Candela overturns the relationship between analogue and digital, because it is an object from
the past that infuses energy into a technological one. The fuel tank contains the bioethanol
needed for five hours of use. Candela is a visionary project that marries the genius of Gomez
Paz with Astep’s courage to develop the technology required to reproduce the system tested
by Seebeck exactly two centuries ago.
A step forward ...
In design: It transforms a discovery 200 years ago in a contemporary object.
In technology: because it is an unexpected mix of analogue and digital. The seemingly ancient
object, the candle, charges the high tech contemporary one, the phone.
In sustainability: because it is powered by biofuel and does not consume energy from fossil
sources, while supplying clean energy to other tools. Rather than using energy, the lamp
actually harvests it.
A MODERN LANTERN
HARVESTING ENERGY FROM THE
FLAME OF BIOETHANOL
36
37
CANDELA
CANDELA
Evolution Collection