Glamtiques: Acrilica Table Lamp

Cesare Colombo, nicknamed Joe, was born in Milan in 1930. He spent the early part of his career as an Abstract Expressionist painter and sculptor, but shifted his focus to architecture and design, opening his own studio in 1962. Always ahead of his time, Joe Colombo used new materials and technologies to explore his visions of the future. Seven years his junior, brother Gianni was an emerging kinetic artist studying the refraction of light on methacrylate (PMMA), commonly known as acrylic. This was essential to the success of their award-winning collaboration - the Acrilica 281 Table Lamp - designed for venerable Italian lighting legend Oluce.

Joe Colombo's prolific and award-winning career in architecture and design came to an unexpected end in 1971, when he died on his 41st birthday. Over the next many decades, Gianni Colombo became one of Italy's most important representatives of kinetic art before his death in 1993.

Acrilica takes its name from methacrylate, commonly known as plexiglas or acrylic. This lamp uses it in an entirely new way. At the time, Gianni experimented with methacrylate cubes, cutting them to see the light effects and colors they would create. But Joe wanted to produce light without color. He would tirelessly bend and fold sheets of methacrylate, studying the curve until it eventually transmitted the light from its hidden source in the base to the end of the lamp.

The effect is magical, as if the light is climbing up the transparent curve. This movement makes Acrilica seem more like a work of kinetic art than a lamp. To mark the 60th anniversary of this award-winning icon, Oluce released a special version with a Portoro marble base and LED light source. Sculptural, fascinating and unexpected, Acrilica still feels distinctly modern despite its last-century origins.