Artemide
Forging the future of lighting design with timeless icons and creative innovation
Artemide
Forging the future of lighting design with timeless icons and creative innovation
In search of the unknown
You can have the most exquisite, curated, envy-inducing home, but without the right lighting it all crumbles to dust.
It’s what Artemide have considered on a daily – and evening, and nightly – basis since its founding in 1960: how to make the home look its very best with lights that create the right ambiance while adding to and enhancing their environment.
It all comes down to originality, innovation, exploration, a dedication to research and the ongoing discovery of true technological advances. An Artemide light doesn’t just look good or simply brighten a room – each piece harnesses decades of experience as well as revolutionary new ideas to journey into the future of lighting design.
The brand is also immersed in 360-degree sustainability, committed to environmental and social reform which has led to its multiple certifications for the way it manufactures and its human impact. Constantly considering the coming centuries, it works to become even greener, guided by scientific research, technological expertise and with a holistic humanistic and ethical approach.
We do not live on light bulbs alone, we live on innovation, which is not only technological. It is mainly innovation of thought.
Founder of the Artemide Group Ernesto Gismondi
Gople Collection | Discover
Gold standard
With many of its pieces considered icons of the modern age – to be found in the hallowed collections of some of the globe’s most respected institutions, such as New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome to name a few – Artemide is recognised the world around for fusing aesthetic glory and flair with truly impactful functionality.
As well as looking forward, the brand has paved the path along the history of illumination, its timeline littered with highly recognisable pieces. Take Eclisse. Created by Italian designer and architect Vico Magistretti in 1965, the pint-sized tabletop pop legend went on to win Italy’s esteemed Compasso D’Oro Award and is still celebrated today for its avant-garde take on an eclipse.
Then there’s also the mushroom-shaped Nesso by Giancarlo Mattioli and Gruppo Architetti Urbanisti Città Nuova, another international icon of futuristic, democratic design. Introduced in 1967, and in production ever since, it was an early example of injection moulded plastic, and its personality-filled Space-Age inspired curves now sit in permanent collections of The MoMA and The Met.
Step back and look at the Artemide collection as a whole, and it’s not so easy to tell which pieces come from decades ago, and which are only weeks old. The timelessness of the early models mean they can mingle inconspicuously among contemporary designs, like time travellers easily blending in to new eras.
Artemide is The Human & Responsible light
The future for Artemide, is about responsibility. Being ethical, socially conscious and planet-friendly. What this looks like, is 360-degree sustainability, both environmentally – relying on in-depth scientific research – as well as placing heavy importance on the well-being of the people that build its brightness.
"The approach to human and responsible light goes hand in hand with design and material savoir faire, combining next-generation technology with ancient wisdoms, a perfect expression of sustainable design."
Founder of the Artemide Group Ernesto Gismondi
Read more about this progressive journey via the link below.
Great Minds
Of course, such grand feats can’t be achieved alone.
Artemide has a roster of revered, internationally-renowned designers in its Rolodex, throughout its history working with the likes of Giò Ponti in its formative 1960s days, Richard Sapper in the 70s, Ettore Sottsass in the 80s, Michele De Lucchi in the 90s, Zaha Hadid in the 2000s, Issey Miyake in the 2010s and Foster + Partners into the present day. Browse its back catalogue and there are more than enough design leaders to fill even the most monolithic of guest books.
What these impressive names bring to the table is – along with their supreme skills, talent and expertise – is variety. There is no one-size-fits-all aesthetic here. Artemide leaps from simple steel lines one moment to iridescent glass bubbles or plinth-worthy sculptural forms the next, to create a bountiful, boundary-breaking lighting library full of choice, experimentation and outside-of-the-box ideas.
Tizio turns 50
Designed in 1972, Artemide is celebrating the iconic Tizio lamp’s 50th birthday with a special version in rich, vivid red, a favourite of its designer Richard Sapper.
An elegant synthesis of intelligent components, the light relies on a sophisticated counterweight system which enables it to move in four directions. The minimalist piece first introduced us to the halogen bulb as well as ingeniously conducting electricity through its arms.
An Italian design masterpiece, Tizio was crowned with the Compasso d’Oro in 1979 and now resides in The MoMa and The Met, remaining almost unchanged from its original design save for the addition of a subtly integrated LED source.
"When we presented it, there was nothing like it on the market, it was revolutionary. Tizio is beautiful in any different position, it is a harmonious object in all its parts, you move it with one hand and it is always extremely precise. It is not that we don't change anything over the years because we can't, we don't change anything because that's the way it is."
Ernesto Gismondi, 2014
You can browse the full collection below...
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