Carlo Nason’s 1969 Lotus Lamp Blooms Again

We thought we knew everything about Murano glassmaking, but the reissue of Lotus, a 1969 table lamp by Italian designer Carlo Nason, introduced us to its experimental side. Nason grew up in a family of local glassmakers and was familiar with the area’s decorative conventions—but chose to subvert them. Lotus, which emerged from his fascination with layered glass, is designed as a series of four individually mouth-blown clear-glass shades, nested inside one another like bowls to form the eponymous flower shape. When switched on, the light is scattered by thousands of trapped, microscopic air bubbles—a technique called pulegoso—to produce an ethereal glow. The 17-inch luminaire is assembled around a black, chrome-plated steel structure engineered by Gubi, and each shade is finished individually, so no two are quite the same. gubi.com

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