Deconstructing Product Design

Bubble Lamp

George Nelson for Howard Miller, 1947

1. Inspiration comes in many forms: a sight, a sound, a smell, and sometimes it is a must-have Swedish hanging lamp that is priced beyond your means. George Nelson comments: “It was important to me to have certain status symbols around, and one of the symbols was a spherical hanging lamp made in Sweden. It had a silk covering that was very difficult to make; they had to cut gores and sew them onto a wire frame. But I wanted one badly. We had a modest office and I felt that if I had one of those big hanging spheres from Sweden, it would show that I was really with it, a pillar of contemporary design. One day Bonniers, a Swedish import store in New York, announced a sale of these lamps. I rushed ...