LIGHT FROM FINLAND
26.11.2009 16:06
The days quickly grow shorter in the North after the autumn equinox. The sun shines low in the sky and will soon disappear behind the horizon. The days are shortest in December, with only a few hours of daylight in between long gloom and a deep night. If there is snow on the ground, it will provide weak reflected light, but black, uncovered ground seems to absorb all energy.
It is thus no wonder that lamp design and lighting technology are a Finnish forte. New technologies such as LED lamps have revolutionized lamp and lighting design. Bright light similar to sunlight can be provided in ways that are energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Light is also treated creatively and in new ways. The shadows cast by a lamp can be part of designed lighting, as in Jukka Korpihete's light fittings, or the lamp itself may resemble a work of art or sculpture. Despite this, Scandinavian functionality and clarity in design have not been forgotten.
Saas Instruments of Helsinki, a company specializing in fibre optics and LED technologies, has aroused attention with its lamps boldly designed through collaboration with Finnish designers and architects. Many of these items fall in between lamp design and art, such as the meditative Medusa, slowly changing shape, breathing and resembling a jellyfish. Light Swing looks like a children's swing and one can actually sit in it.
The Freedom of Creation company of Janne Kyttänen, a Finnish designer living in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, applies completely new technology in the design and manufacturing of light fittings. Kyttänen's flower-like lamps are made with so-called rapid manufacturing, by which a computer-based design can be realized as a physical object anywhere in the world, in a completely individual manner if so desired, and economically. Kyttänen's slender, graceful lamps are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among other collections.
Bright light lamps are another invention of the regions of winter gloom, with efficient sources of lighting resembling daylight for purposes of personal wellbeing and health. Finland is among world leaders in light therapy. Eero Aarnio, one of today's best-known Finnish designers, created the sculptural Innosol bright light lamp for the Innojok company. The Innosol lamp can be easily lifted and moved to a place where you'd like your 30 minutes of daily light therapy.
Aarnio's interesting plastic language of form has come into more use in lamps designed for the Melaja company of Finland. Double Bubble, Swan, Fontana, Pinja and Kubo are all exciting lamps that are more like modern works of sculpture than just sources of light. These lamps designed by Eero Aarnio for Melaja can be seen in more detail at Hirameki Finland Design Sparks at Ozone 2010, a major display of Finnish design opening in Tokyo in the autumn of 2010.
Anne Veinola
Design Forum Finland
www.melaja.fi
