Welf Örtel: Shape-Shifters, Face-Lifters

We think we are familiar with most of the popular design highlights without ever having used them. For example, I know almost everything there is to know about the famous Lounge Chair by Charles and Ray Eames – except, that is, how it feels to sit in it for a while. Not that I would ever admit this in a trendy interior decorator’s and thus expose my actual lack of knowledge. Don‘t judge a book by its cover! It is never completely fair to judge an everyday object merely by its qualities as seen in a shop window. In the case of serien.lighting, this would in fact be tantamount to committing an act of gross negligence. To under­stand the rather poetic Magic and Poppy models you must have at least experienced them in action: when you switch them on you become witness to a metamorphosis, with the bimetal “petals” unfolding as the light emits its ineluctable warmth. Most serien.lighting luminaires have a number of different visual shapes. By this I do not mean that the same light just gets a blue or a green shade. No, it is more than that. It is about lights which are not content with a single defined form or function.

In my opinion it all started with Lift – the brainchild of Jean-Marc da Costa who as a manufacturer more or less launched serien.lighting. And after 20 successful years on the market, the luminaire can rightly be called a classic. Clearly in evidence here is this quality of shape-shifting – in this example thanks to a height adjustability function – and it forms an important part of the overall optical appearance of this small pendant luminaire. Lift is a design which of course not only delivers on its ‘functional promise’, but transforms it into the main aesthetic message. In its time, serien.lighting also departed from the pure teachings of functional rationality, as did most of German design at the beginning of the 1980s. However, serien.lighting eschewed all the wild and crazy follies the era otherwise bestowed upon us. Moreover, the product name is not simply an explanation of its function but has humorous undertones: on the one hand of course I can lift the luminaire. On the other hand, it can likewise be associated with a quaint little row of paternosters moving up and down in tireless motion...

Almost ten years later, designers Uwe Fischer and Achim Heine, who at the time went under the alias of GINBANDE, dreamt up another striking design; it not only followed in the tradition of their own work until then but also and just as consis­tently moved the concept behind serien.lighting forward. In the case of Take Five, an extendable luminaire,it is exactly this promise of change which leads to three funda­mentally different “aggre­­gate states” in terms of shape. In the most compact position, namely with the luminaire squeezed fully together, the five linear lamps form a square area of light. Extended to full length they create a perfectly straight line, an im­pressive 150 centi­­­meters long. From experience, the intermediate stages can be said to comm­unicate the luminaire’s promise most clearly, which is why it is most often photo­graphed set in that position.
Why is an adjustable luminaire so special in my eyes? We‘ve seen them thousands of times before. The difference between the myriad of table lamps which can be adjusted for height and other things is that the adjustability in this case is the decisive, intrinsic feature of the luminaire. In addition it prompts the viewer to want to change the shape not just for reasons of practical functionality – the luminaire acts analogously to any extendable table, something it is pre-destined to illuminate. Back then, when I asked him in an interview what this was all about, Uwe Fischer spoke of “an invitation to redesign”. (It may well be that the first examples of Tizio by Richard Sapper triggered similar playful responses...)

A great many years later, Floyd Paxton went a step further. He took a sliding lattice and bent it round to form a circle whose diameter could be changed as simply as could the length of the Take Five. Just like Lift, the name is once again clearly the agenda: Zoom. The design follows on from the virtues of Take Five in every respect, but with gratifyingly lower production costs. For the sliding lattice which GINBANDE produced from elegant but complex molded plastic components, Zoom makes do with strips of spring steel backed with a special foil. The lamps are likewise left unshaded and fixed at the intersection points of the sliding lattice, but they are on the inside of the cylinder; thus when the sliding lattice is in a closed position it functions as a perfect shade. Although there is less formal difference here to a simple technical construction, the luminaire unfolds in almost ironic splendor, clearly taking the stage as a modern chandelier. When the sliding lattice is opened further, the lamps shine through sideways so that the chandelier immediately sets aglitter everything upon which it sheds its light. This is particularly true of the multiple-cascade version, where up to five rings hang concentrically over one another.

Jones, the three-in-one luminaire created by Uwe Fischer in 1999, actually succeeds in going one further. Following the tradition of understatement from the early serien.lighting years, the shape initially promises nothing of what the familiar looking floor lamp can do (apart from the fact that the somewhat complex shaft of a serien.lighting luminaire cannot of course simply be an end in itself). It is a great and unobtrusive standing lamp complete with contemporary lounge appeal. But in order to shed the full light on this mysterious figure in the corner, the sales catalogue includes a diagram of the lighting variations (that’s what happens when you’re so modest...). Because Jones is no more and no less than a veritable face-lifter: it is a wonderfully efficient reading light, atmospheric shade luminaire and a real ceiling-flooder in one. This is all achieved with a single lamp and simplicity so that you cannot help but take your hat off to it: the halogen lamp moves up through the luminaire along with the shade and color diffuser – this is possible with a refined pulley system and a reflector inside the shade. By contrast, other people’s attempts to solve the problems of providing so many different light sources for a living room appear hopelessly awkward, relying as they do on all manner of fold-out lamps and additional sources!
The legendary light-makers do not have their reputation for nothing. The Italians are renowned for the poetic nature of their products, which nevertheless function (perhaps also because their design stars are now tedeschi and inglese?) In the case of Ingo Maurer it is the radical realization of a charming idea without bowing down to what the Technical Inspection Authority says or the cleaners want. The lighting tinkerers at Erco and its ilk still succeed in triggering the same childlike male joy at encountering technical perfection – and this continues to guarantee sales for the German automobile sector. And serien.lighting? First of all, they perform the perfect balancing act: between the claim that only a functional, really good and innovative product has a right to be on the market (da Costa and Wolf are extremely competent and harsh design critics...), and, on the other, the strict maxim that there is no idea good enough or new enough to justify an ugly corner on their products (not even underneath or at the back...).

More important still it appears that owing to this concept of design, “animated” and unique products that are more than just lighting continue to be created. One could say that Take Five is the icon of adjustability, yet it retains its personal character throughout. Zoom takes this principle one step further: by shifting in shape, its character also changes. Jones can take on a completely new role without changing shape or character. What we have here is shape-shifting face-lifter in the very best sense of the word.