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Foscarini
Lumiere
Orbital
Havana
Mite
Orbital /1992 — design Ferruccio Laviani
About shedding light
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Above image from the Notturno
Laviani photographic project by
Gianluca Vassallo to celebrate Orbital’s
30th anniversary.
Below, one of the fi rst prototypes
and the commemorative stamp from
the ‘Italian Design’ series.
Chap. 1 — A new design for light
laser-cut sheet metal, onto which the fi ve
supports of the glass slabs are welded.
The design of this last element housing the
light source was devised with painstaking
care: by shaping and lightening the support
with three holes and conceiving a dedicated
lamp holder and an ‘oversized’ head for the
slab closing screw. Since the light bulb is
completely visible, it becomes an integral
part of the lamp design. The slabs feature a
mixtilinear profi le and were initially supposed
to look like stained glass used in cathedrals,
they are made of coloured or white
silk-screen printed industrial glass (the
version became a staple in the catalogue
after a few years) with a satin fi nish on the
exterior. The polished interior treatment
makes the diffuser a light refl ector too.
The following year, hot on the trail of its
success at Euroluce, Orbital was produced in
the modular wall lamp version Bit, which
separated the glass elements from the arms,
while in 2003, to celebrate its tenth
anniversary, a special edition was produced
with mirrored glass slab diffusers and
polished chrome-fi nish metal supports
and rod.
In 2022, on the occasion of the design’s
thirtieth anniversary, Gianluca Vassallo
curated the photographic project Notturno
Laviani coined to celebrate the thirty-year
partnership between the designer and
Foscarini. The project consists of several
episodes designed around the lamps devised
over the three decades, each presented with
two shots, one in an indoor setting and the
other outside, accompanied by a non
caption-based narrative. The lamps are not in
fact shown in regular domestic interiors but
in alien contexts, built around a single
imaginary light.
Mirror version celebrating
Orbital’s 10th anniversary and Bit
wall lamp version.
