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| The ethereal Yoko lamps designed by Anderssen & Voll for Foscarini and exhibited for the first time in Milan |
The Northern light was the inspiration for Norwegian designers Anderssen&Voll’s new lamp called Yoko launched in Milan this year by Italian company Foscarini, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento
THE design has a Scandinavian simplicity enhanced by the pale yet lucid hues of violet, orange and green. The lamp looks like a fragile bubble about to burst with it’s transparent outer skin resting lightly on a cylindrical light source below.
The designers Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll are based in Oslo and are known for their lean and modernist design. “The Yoko lamp is conceptual and ethereal, simple but at the same time sophisticated," says Anderssen. "We wanted to create spontaneous and immediate emotion. The design has a well-balanced, transparent form and fills the environment with a northern white light, creating a suffused yet vibrant atmosphere. "
The Yoko lamp’s design was based on a lengthy research of materials to form the curvature of the lamp’s silhouette. The complicated technology involved in making the lamp is disguised by its overall simplicity. The design was made based on the blow-moulding technique - not using glass but polymethilmethacrylate.
"In working with the Yoko we’re breaking with the archetypal form of a traditional lamp,'' says Voll. "Instead of a light source and shade held up by a structure, the transparent piece rests on the illuminated base. The lamp is made up of two intersecting shapes, balancing beauty and technology. Both the blow moulding technique and the use of polymethilmethacrylate have made it possible to create the lamp."
The lamp’s name Yoko was created through the assonance of two syllables: "We like the name because it reflects the dialogue between the two intersecting volumes that form the lamp," says Anderssen.
Originally founders of the design group Norway Says, Anderssen and Voll are now among the most prominent and successful Norwegian designers. Both have been named Norwegian and Scandinavian designers of the year in Norway and received international awards and recognition for their work with furniture, lighting and home accessories.
Click on video to see the two designers talking about the Yoko lamp in Norway:
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| Preparatory sketch for the Yoko lamp showing the idea of two intersecting spheres |
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| The transparent lamps are imbued with subtle hues of violet, orange and green. |
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| Award-winning Norwegian designers Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll who were inspired by a floating bubble to create the new Yoko lamps |
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| "In working with the Yoko we’re breaking with the archetypal form of a traditional lamp,'' says Voll. "Instead of a light source and shade held up by a structure, the transparent piece rests on the illuminated base." |