The Parentesi lamp was launched by Flos in 1972 and it has been in continues production ever since. Forty years later, much has changed. The world of lighting has seen a fundamental shift from conventional bulbs to a variety of new lighting technologies which in themselves are creating new opportunities for the design and manufacturing of lamps.
Designing a lamp is no longer limited to working around a given bulb. Today, it means designing the actual bulb or light source. This challenged me to think of Parentesi, a lamp that celebrated the traditional bulb in the most effective and beautiful way. Would it be possible to rethink the Parentesi lamp once more and pass the Manzù-Castiglioni torch on to the future? Konstantin Grcic Grcic pays homage to an icon of Italian industrial design, redesigning the original light bulb as an ultra-flat LED surface with edge-lighting technology, directable over 360 degrees. The parenthesis-shaped tube of the original lamp maintains its vertical sliding function over the steel cable, but has now become a small rectangular box that houses the electronic components and a soft-touch switch. The formerly cylindrical weight has been substituted by an easier-to-install cone shape. Only the small ceiling rose, designed by Achille Castiglioni, has remained identical: a beautifully shaped piece of spun metal.
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