--- title: First, there was light. Then the lampshade. description: How the floor lamp learnt to become a statement, from the Anglepoise and Arco to the Panthella and Moooi's horse, and why one brilliant lamp can change a room. image: https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/First%2c%20there%20was%20light.%20Then%20the%20lampshade%20Decode%20Everything%20But.png --- [Skip to content](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/first-there-was-light.-then-the-lampshade#main-content) [![Everything But | Good Design. Decoded.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png?width=1045&height=298&name=footer%20website%20wordmark%20blk.png "Everything But | Good Design. 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[Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/author/everything-but) [IN /ɪn/ adv.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/in-ɪn-adv), [Decode](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/decode) ![](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/First%2c%20there%20was%20light.%20Then%20the%20lampshade%20Decode%20Everything%20But.png) How the floor lamp learnt to become a statement AD | This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. ### First it got clever Before it got beautiful, the floor lamp learnt to put light exactly where you needed it. ### Then it got personality From a grasshopper on three legs to a life-size horse. ### One lamp can do it No new sofa. No redecorating. Just one brilliant decision. Before electricity, floor-standing lights burned candles, oil or gas. Electric light changed the possibilities. No naked flame. No gas pipe tethering the light to the wall. Now a lamp could go wherever there was a socket, and the standard lamp became a fixture of modern domestic life. It offered something the overhead light couldn't: a pool of illumination exactly where you needed it. ## When lighting got clever The first great revolutions weren't about looks. They were about how light behaved. In Denmark, [Poul Henningsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul_Henningsen) had spent the 1920s on a problem most people hadn't noticed: glare. His layered PH shades sent light down and outwards without ever showing the bare bulb, a principle that still shapes how good lamps are designed today. Then, in the 1930s, British engineer George Carwardine developed the spring-balanced mechanism behind the [Anglepoise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglepoise_lamp). Originally a desk lamp, it could be repositioned with remarkable precision and stay there. It is now also made as a floor lamp. In 1947, Swedish designer [Greta Magnusson Grossman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Magnusson-Grossman) produced the [Gräshoppa](https://tidd.ly/4yfEHNS) floor lamp. With its three-legged stance, tilted frame and elongated shade, it looked almost alive: more insect than standard lamp. Elegant, useful and slightly eccentric. The idea that a floor lamp could have its own personality had arrived. ## Then Italy rewrote the rules If one moment changed the standing lamp's reputation, it might be 1962, when [Achille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Castiglioni) and [Pier Giacomo Castiglioni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Giacomo_Castiglioni) designed the [Arco](https://tidd.ly/3W1p7YT) for Flos. A huge block of Carrara marble. A long stainless-steel arm. A suspended aluminium shade. The idea was beautifully practical: overhead light without drilling into the ceiling. Inspired by street lighting, the brothers brought the concept indoors, and in solving an everyday problem they created an extraordinary object. The Arco didn't sit politely beside the sofa. It occupied space, framed furniture and became part of the architecture. And it looked expensive, because it was. Italy was becoming a laboratory for radical domestic design. Flos, Artemide and others were turning lighting into something far more adventurous than a shade on a stick. Synthetic resins, new metals and experimental forms gave designers a freedom previous generations could barely have imagined. The practical object was becoming a cultural statement. ## Plastic fantastic In 1971, [Verner Panton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verner_Panton) designed the [Panthella](https://tidd.ly/4s2zacg) for Louis Poulsen. Its mushroom-like shade and curving base made it instantly recognisable and were designed, as one, to reflect and diffuse light. The material mattered. Plastic allowed continuous curves and soft forms that would have been difficult or expensive in traditional materials. Lighting could suddenly look futuristic, organic, even a little space-age. The best examples weren't just fashionable. They were entirely new ways of thinking about what a domestic object could be. ## A matter of taste? Then came Memphis. In 1981, [Ettore Sottsass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Sottsass) and a group of designers launched a movement that seemed determined to upset every rule of respectable modern design. Out went restraint; in came colour, pattern, improbable shapes and industrial materials used with extravagant confidence. Lighting became deliberately theatrical. Martine Bedin's [Super lamp](https://memphis.it/en/products/super/), also from 1981, was a brightly coloured object on wheels, closer to a playful creature than a domestic fitting. Was it practical? That was almost beside the point. Memphis turned the household object into a conversation, sometimes an argument. It arrived in an era of conspicuous consumption, but its lasting achievement was more interesting than excess. It made being unconventional desirable, and gave designers permission to have a sense of humour. ## From object to obsession Minimalism eventually pushed back. Clean lines, architectural forms and carefully controlled light became desirable again. Then designers started asking a different question. What if the lamp were the artwork? In 2006, Swedish studio [Front](http://www.frontdesign.se/) created the [Horse Lamp](https://www.moooi.com/uk/product/moooi-horse-lamp-black-9839) for Moooi: a life-size black horse with a lampshade on its head, running on volts rather than carrots. The Horse Lamp, Front for Moooi, 2006 Completely ridiculous. Completely memorable. The line between furniture, sculpture and lighting was becoming irrelevant. You didn't buy something like that because your room was too dark. You bought it because you wanted a life-sized horse in your living room. A horse that happened to light up. ## So what now? Statement lighting seems to be everywhere: oversized forms, hand-worked glass, metallic finishes, glowing orbs, sculptural arches, and materials that look as interesting switched off as on. This time, something else is happening as the world around us becomes more complex. We increasingly want objects that make a room feel individual. After years of restrained neutrals, a single extraordinary lamp can bring colour, contrast, humour or drama to our homes without changing everything else. There's a useful parallel with the so-called 'lipstick effect': the idea that smaller indulgences stay appealing when bigger purchases feel out of reach. A designer floor lamp is hardly a cheap lipstick, of course. But the principle of one purchase doing the heavy lifting is interesting. You might not want to replace the sofa or completely redecorate. One brilliant lamp can change your whole composition. There are other reasons too. LED and smart technology give designers new freedom with scale, slim profiles, unusual materials and integrated light. And social media rewards objects you recognise instantly. A remarkable lamp has become both furniture and a visual signature. ## The designers making lighting interesting for me today Henningsen, the Castiglioni brothers, Panton and Grossman laid great foundations. But contemporary lighting isn't short of interesting people. [Michael Anastassiades](https://michaelanastassiades.com/) makes light feel like a balancing act. His [IC lamp](https://tidd.ly/4ihluGS) for Flos, a glass globe poised on a slender frame, is restrained yet almost impossible to ignore. [Omer Arbel](https://omerarbel.com/) at Bocci explores the unpredictable qualities of glass, producing lighting that sits somewhere between scientific experiment and contemporary sculpture. [Marcel Wanders](https://www.marcelwanders.com/) and Moooi continue to make theatrical lighting a desirable part of the modern interior. [Ingo Maurer](https://www.ingo-maurer.com/en/), whose career began in the 1960s, showed how humour, invention and technology could turn the light bulb itself into a design idea. His studio continues that legacy. Beyond the familiar luxury names, a new generation of independent makers is exploring cast glass, ceramics, recycled materials and limited editions as collectable art. The line between showroom and gallery is getting harder to define. ## What comes next? Three directions look particularly interesting to me. 01 ### More sculpture Lamps designed to be looked at in daylight, not just switched on at night: large-scale glass, irregular forms, surprising silhouettes. 02 ### More material experimentation Recycled glass, specialist composites, textured ceramics and reclaimed materials creating new ways of forming and diffusing light. 03 ### More character Rather than filling a room with a showroom of statement pieces, choosing one genuinely distinctive object and letting everything else settle around it. [Find yours in the Floor Lamp Edit.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-floor-lamp-edit) Why it works The most interesting floor lamp isn't necessarily the biggest or most expensive. It's the one that makes the rest of the room look better. ## The Floor Lamp Edit Not everybody has the room, budget or inclination for a life-size illuminated horse. Which, in my mind, is probably sensible. But the ideas here don't have to stay with the collectors. The extraordinary arc, the glowing globe, the sculptural shape: each brings personality to a room in its own way. Ready to make a statement? Arcs, glass globes and sculptural shapes. Lamps with something to say. [SHOP THE FLOOR LAMP EDIT →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-floor-lamp-edit) LIKE THIS? Interiors, gardens, useful ideas and things I'd genuinely want at home. The Edit lands every other Thursday. ## Questions ### Who designed the Arco floor lamp? Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, for Flos, in 1962. Its marble base and long arc were designed to give overhead light without drilling into the ceiling. ### Was the Anglepoise always a floor lamp? No. George Carwardine's spring-balanced design of the 1930s began as a desk lamp. Floor-standing versions came later. ### What makes a floor lamp a statement piece? Scale, shape or material that holds your attention when the lamp is switched off. The best ones work as sculpture by day and light by night. ### Can one lamp really change a room? Yes, if everything else is allowed to stay calm. One distinctive lamp in a quiet room reads as a decision, not clutter. ## Related Articles ## [The Lighting Edit](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-lighting-edit) Most rooms don’t need more lights. They need the right ones in the right places. This Edit brings... [Read More](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-lighting-edit) ## [The Floor Lamp Edit](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-floor-lamp-edit) The arcs, globes and sculptures worth giving floor space to, from design icons to clever buys at a... [Read More](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-floor-lamp-edit) [![How to Layer Lighting in a Room: 5 Layers Explained | Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Cotswold%20Barn%20with%20RH%20Chandelier%20and%20Cire%20Trudon%20Lighting.png?width=750&name=Cotswold%20Barn%20with%20RH%20Chandelier%20and%20Cire%20Trudon%20Lighting.png)](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/how-to-layer-lighting-in-a-room) ## [How to layer lighting in a room](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/how-to-layer-lighting-in-a-room) **IN** /ɪn/ *adv.* Everything inside. Most rooms have one light doing five jobs, then everyone wonders... 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