Gomez Paz-Rizzatto bring us HOPE in modular refractions

The spark of design innovation doesn’t happen by chance, but as the result of a long process of gestation that clicks into place when all the conditions are right: technical, productive, commercial conditions and – why not – even cultural factors. If we shift this thinking into the world of lighting the adventure is even more intriguing. The example is a project based on the desire to add some glow to the already resplendent history of a typological icon that has emerged across the centuries, starting with the original lamp of candles and evolving in electric armed chandeliers, using fine Murano glass or Bohemian crystal. A solemn, aristocratic archetype, faithful to an illustrious crafts tradition, rare and identified with luxury, though also threatened by its own kitsch imitations. The exact opposite of the abat-jour, with its dusky, petit bourgeois connotations.

The right man for the job was obviously Paolo Rizzatto, who has already updated the classic lampshade, converting it to the reasoning of design, under the name Costanza. “I had been thinking about the theme of the chandelier for years,” says the Milanese architect and designer, co-founder of Luceplan, “but I wanted to approach it in a truly innovative way, without removing its magic, but making it more affordable thanks to industrialization”. Not nostalgic restyling, but patient, careful linguistic and formal revision, conducted on the basis of the knowledge and technology available today, faithful to the tenets of the purest industrial design.

“By subtraction,” Rizzatto explains, after looking for just the right moment to approach this critical reinterpretation, in keeping with the philosophy of Luceplan, focusing on environmental sustainability. The spark finally appeared when Rizzatto met the Argentine designer Francisco Gomez Paz, who brought lively intuition and great ability to the project. A fertile dialogue between two design generations that led, two years ago, to the co-creation of “a plastic chandelier, light, unbreakable, with low environmental impact, not very cumbersome, easy to assemble and disassemble, with a lower cost than its more illustrious forebears, but still capable of lighting, furnishing and astonishing”. The initial idea was to generate, starting with a single light source, a multiplication of luminous points, like the reflection and refraction effects produced by real glass and crystal in classic chandeliers, while avoiding glare. “This is why,” Gomez Paz explains, “we thought of using the same principle as Fresnel lenses”.

These lenses, named for their inventor, the physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, make it possible to reduce size, thickness and weight of spherical lenses, while conserving their power. “The problem,” Rizzatto adds, “was to find the technology suitable for the required optical quality”. The solution was achieved with the collaboration of a specialized company that employs technicians from Carl Zeiss.

“Taking advantage of the technologies developed for the production of Fresnel lenses and mirrors for luminous panels, we came up with special processes for two types of polycarbonate film with a thickness of just one millimeter, a flat surface for microprisms, at intervals of 8/10 of a millimeter”. These lenses reduce the image of the light source to 1/5, attenuating glare.

The chandelier, known as Serenissima, is composed of three elements arranged in sequence around a single central bulb: a light but solid structure in cut and bent sheet steel; a variable number of removable arms in injection-moulded polycarbonate; a series thin, flat Fresnel reducing lenses, obtained through the process described above. Assembly is easy, like a puzzle, and can be done directly by the customer. The structure with the bulb is suspended at the desired height.

Two lenses of different sizes snap on to each arm, giving the polycarbonate sheets a slight curve that makes them sturdier. Then the arms are applied to the structure. The result is a refined work of architecture that expands outward, from the nucleus, in branches and leaves, gradually dematerializing. “To develop this radiant form we looked at micro-organisms, single-celled algae enclosed in a transparent wrapper”, says Francisco Gomez Paz. For the moment the project has led to two different versions, small and medium (diameter 64 and 72 cm, with 12 or 18 branches, each with one large and one small leaf ), but the models will increase to generate an entire family of lamp models. The packaging is also practical, light and ecocompatible: a cubical cardboard box, about 35 cm on each side, for an overall weight of no more than 2 kg.

by Francesco Massoni © 2009 Arnoldo Mondadori Spa - Interni