On October 23, another email arrives
from Zaha with an elongated version of
the previous design, asking to replace it.
Slamp’s CEO Roberto Ziliani, someone
who loves a challenge has a stroke of
genius; “why not make both?”.
The
deciding
moment
arrives
on
November 17, 2012, when then Head
of R&D, now Slamp’s Art Director Luca
Mazza flies to London to show Dame Zaha
Hadid the definitive prototypes in person.
They hang the two options in her Goswell
Road studio, both the wider version, and
the elongated version. Zaha Hadid and
her partner Patrik Schumaker show up
with others, and the tension can be cut
with a knife. Luca and Nigel explain the
engineering and illumination techniques,
aspects Studio Hadid fully entrusted to
Slamp’s know-how. The products have
something magic about them, and the
light gives them extraordinary energy.
They generate sophisticated atmosphere
while casting the right glow, even over
surfaces like a tabletop. Zaha is especially
taken with the wider version, with black
shaded edges.
We can say that on November 17, 2012,
in London’s Goswell Road studio, Aria
and Avia come to life.
Between the end of February and the
beginning of March, a month before
the official launch during Milan’s 2013
Euroluce/Salone
del
Mobile,
four
prototypes to be seen by the public are
approved. Avia comes in four sizes, both
in all white and all black, and Aria in one
size, in transparent polycarbonate with
printed, shaded black borders. When
asked to comment on the final product,
Zaha says, “Sweeping motion lifts and
turns both Avia and Aria. Like billowing
clouds, light ripples across their blurred
interplay of solid and void, evolving,
compressing and contracting from every
angle.”
On April 11, 2013, right in the middle of
Milan’s Euroluce, Nigel receives a call
from Melodie to let him know that Zaha
may visit the stand herself. The stand is
buzzing with designer interviews, clients
interested in the newest collections,
journalists taking photos to publish them
later in their blogs…but no hint of Zaha.
The closer it gets to closing time, the
more hope grew that she would visit;
the Slamp team grows disappointed, and
confesses the day after that they’d been
thinking, “maybe something came up”.
Instead, she shows up minutes before
the stand closes, in a black coat and her
sunglasses holding her hair back from
her face. With every step she takes,
the crowd separates, and everyone asks
themselves if it’s actually her. Some take
photographs; it’s not everyday that one
is a meter away from Zaha Hadid. She is
imposing yet delicate and open, smiling
for an extra moment at anyone who
catches her eye. Everyone from Slamp
welcomes her. Luca Mazza shows her
the space, bringing her to the centre
where her creations, Aria and Avia are
on display. She sits on a sofa and silently
observes alongside her closest friend and
longtime collaborator, Camiran Rasool,
owner of the marble company Citco.
This is the beginning of two successful
collections that for almost 10 years
have seen exhibitions, retrospectives,
international
projects,
and
other
important events, Dubai’s Opus Tower,
Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Park, The
Tokyo Opera House, Mexico City’s
Muac, Rome’s Maxxi, and Dubai’s Heller
Gallery.
In 2015 the collection expands with Aria
Transparent, available in three sizes and
fitted with an integrated LED source. It’s
presented in the 2015 Euroluce stand by
Patrik Schumaker himself.
March 31, 2016, less than two weeks
before the launch of the luxe Aria Gold,
metallised using aluminium vaporisation,
the devastating, sobering news of Zaha’s
passing arrives. Slamp’s hub falls silent;
there are no appropriate words to
describe the loss.
The creative affinity between Slamp and
Studio Hadid, the extraordinary people
like Melodie Leung, Maha Kutay, and
Woody Yao, the constant respect and
kindness throughout every step of the
design process allow for a continuing
relationship, richly evolving to the
point of moving beyond simply that of
professional to esteemed, personal. In
April of 2018, Slamp works with them
to present a limited 99 piece collection
in three colours, Blue, Turquoise, and
Ultramarine: Avia Edition celebrates
Zaha Hadid’s first collection for Slamp.
In March 2020, the Avia collection
evolves with black and white versions
that fade from top to bottom, replacing
the current versions in the catalogue. The
fades are offset 5mm from the borders,
that when illuminated, trace the same
“irregular, almost Palaeolithic arms”
that Zaha designed in 2012. A tribute
to her genius, her visionary, glowing
architecture, on a smaller scale. As an
emotional Maha Kutay noted in speech
after wining the DesignEuropa prize, “it
may simply seem like a lamp…but Zaha’s
DNA is inside it”.
THE TRUE STORY
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