Finally we are starting the special collaborative project with OKOLO which will post some of the most interesting news from central and east European design scene as our exclusive guest editor. We begin with an interview with Slovakian designer Tomáš Král, who works as a professor at ECAL right now. We were discussing with him his last lightning projects.
You have designed several lamps. Do you like this theme? And why?
Yes that is true. Among other topics, I was always very concerned about the question of light and lightning. A single lamp is our every day object. Everyone have at least two lamps in each room of the apartment, that’s the fact. So for the designer it’s a very important subject. But it’s a real challenge to make a lamp that produces a good light.
Screen lamp
Screen lamp
Three of your latest projects are three lights. What they are exactly?
Yes that’s quite funny I know, but it wasn’t a real intension to design only the lamps this year. I was successively asked by different people and companies to design lamps for them. Actually, the glass lamp project began there was almost a year, but we presented it only last November. The terracotta lamp was made last summer and the metal one in January. This tree lamps are very different projects not only because the material is different, but also due the difference of clients.
What is the concept behind the Screen lamp? What was the inspiration?
The Screen lamp is design more as a divider – space divider on the working desk for example. It’s a lighting panel that can be use in the office or at home where people share the working space and need the light. The piece was design on the occasion of Ecal’s lights exhibition at gallery Kreo and it’s more sculptural but very simple piece made out of 3 anodized aluminum plates assembled together. Everything is design to be quite slim. The LED stripes are integrated in the 6mm thick aluminum L profile and project the light to the central screen / reflector that helps to orientate and diffuse the light.
And what about the Anemone lamp?
The Anemone lamp is a limited edition designed for the 2nd edition of glass objects by Matteo Gonet, a Swiss glass blower. After his first collaboration with designers on the project of glass urns he decided to ask 5 new designers to design glass lamps that he can produce in his studio. We started to present the lamp in the gallery Triode in Paris last November. My lamp is quite organic. It’s a kind of symbiosis of 2 different glass shapes and colors that cohabiting together strangely.
Anemone lamp
What lamp designs from the history are your favourite?
There is more than one. The Castiglioni’s Luminator edited by Flos which is very elegant one as well as the Vico Magistreti’s Atollo lamp. I also like a lot the intelligence of the Arco lamp by Castiglioni. In general, I’m also very impressed by the work of Gino Sarfatti.
Terracotta lamp
What do you think? What is most important to design good light?
I think that the most important is the choice of the light source. The good light is for me the one that produce very effective, agreeable and functional light for the purpose it’s intended.
Whole interview and much more about design and everything around on www.okoloweb.cz
