Siderea

Alberto Rosselli - 1969

Alberto Rosselli was the son-in-law of Gio Ponti. With his work as an architect he has contributed to the realization of the magnificent Milanese palaces of the post-war period.
But he was also a designer and in 1969, the year of the moon landing, he created Siderea: a true icon of the Space Age.
Through a satin-finished mirror and a silver-tipped bulb, it manages to create an innovative effect for time: a flat, thin and luminous surface.
A true precursor.

Materials

Iron, Glass

Type

Table lamp

Bulbs

1xLED max 8W E27-220V / E26-110V (with silver cap)

Insulation

Class II / IP20

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Datasheet
2D/3D Files
Manual

Inspiration

Alberto Rosselli got Michele Provinciali or Pino Tovaglia, Bruno Munari or Max Huber, Albe Steiner or Franco Grignani to design “Stile Industria”. The choice of title for the magazine is indicative. They were trying to define the field of action of design – of industrial design and visual communication – and to speak of a possible openness to exchanges between industry and technical intellectuals.
This need to draw up a theoretical and critical thinking around the project, between production and consumption, could be made out against a backdrop of events such as the birth of the most important prize dedicated to design, organized by La Rinascente. In the meantime, Rosselli was designing the Pirelli skyscraper too, with Gio Ponti and Antonio Fornaroli, a building that suited Milan to a T, as you would say for a piece of clothing. Modern, just like the city was modern then. Ugo Mulas and Mario Dondero were photographing the community at Bar Jamaica. Lucio Fontana was grouping together young artists of all leanings in an ongoing seminar that was also a school of life. In his studio in Corso Monforte he was making works that for him were Spatial Concepts. Around a decade earlier, in Buenos Aires, with his pupils, he had written the Manifiesto Blanco in which he asserted that the colour, sound and movement that develop in time and space “are fundamental to the new art which encompasses the four dimensions of existence”. In Siderea, designed by Rosselli in 1969, these inspirations almost seemed to reverberate, combined, perhaps, with the fascination of the discovery of the Moon. It is a creature with a large transparent dome and a light bulb that prevents the light from going upwards. It is the disc at the bottom that makes it flicker. Something also needs to be said about its body, which is cylindrical and made of metal.