Magnus Wästberg has created something amazing. He founded his company in 2008 with the wonderfully simple ambition to work only with the most exalted architects and designers. Thirteen years later, not only is he achieving this, but he's also proved he can pursuade people to create lights for him that other brands would give their eye-teeth to work with. So we should all be very grateful to him, because we can now specify the lights that they have designed for his young brand.
The result is inevitably eclectic—there is no design that is a "typical Wästberg". But it is a collection we all need to know about, not only for the quality of production and the attention paid to the user experience, but also in case you ever have a client who is interested in design and/or architecture (and/or the use of sustainable products). So let's look a bit closer at what is in the current catalogue, designer by designer.
Ilse Crawford
Starting as he meant to go on, Ilse Crawford's w084 Studioilse was included in his first collection.
A bit of a surprise, now that most task lights are designed to be as streamlined as possible! But that was not the aim here. Instead, it celebrates the simple, honest materials from which it is its made—wood, iron and mineral plastic. It suits a cosy, comfortable, not-particularly-tidy homely environment better than all the sleek metal task lights ever could:
The design process that achieved this started with a chat between Ilse and Magnus. They arranged various kitchen utensils, such as a frying pan, wooden spoons and a breakfast bowl, and fashioned them into the shape we see now. Both materials and form remain true to those utensils today, to the extent that the base is still manufactured by Sweden’s oldest frying pan manufacturer!
w084 was in the first Wästberg collection. In the latest is Ilse Crawford's w203 Ilumina, "a universal light". What does that mean? Well, it fits into a wide variety of environments, partly because it is a timeless design (and a bit mid-century?)...
...and partly because the function it performs is appropriate to several different settings. It casts light downwards, preventing any glare getting into the eyes, and therefore works very well on a desk...
Indeed, it was inspired by a traditional library light. So it specifically combines the traditional and the contemporary, its attributes making it a very satisfactory bedside light:
A theme that runs through the Wästberg collection (and therefore this post) is the attention he pays to the tactile quality of those lights that will be touched regularly. For w084 it is in the dimming, which is done by a sliding control on the stem.
David Chipperfield
Another early introduction to the Wästberg catalogue was w102 Chipperfield, an efficient machine-like lighting device, very obviously made of metal:
Created at a time when brass was rarely used in new decorative lighting, it was quite a statement to make a contemporary light almost entirely from brass. Tactility was again to the fore, from the feel of the brushed brass, to the way that the rotary dimmer feels when operating, to the resistance and smooth operation of the swivel base. It is beautifully engineered (as you’d expect from the combination of David Chipperfield and Magnus)—no detail is overlooked.
There is a floor version....
...and a wall version that, coming from a Scandinavian source, has a trailing cable to plug into a wall socket:
W202 Halo comes in three versions:
It was created as a homage to the traditional light bulb, not so much to its shape as to its being an incandescent light source. It therefore produces full spectrum light like that produced by the Sun, which has guided not just the design of our eyes, but also our very evolution. Because incandescent lamps are being anathemized, we now have to use fluorescent light sources that can only produce sections of the spectrum. It is dishonest light, and we can’t yet know what the mental and physical health consequences will be, particularly given that most of us now spend most of our lives in artificial light. Two giants of the lighting world, Ingo Maurer and Davide Groppi, felt and responded the same way, with their own homages to the light bulb.
The designs themselves are gimmick-free—they are the essence of a pendant light. Even the “bulb” in this version….
….is in fact made from the same blown glass as the rest of the luminaire (the LED and its heat sink being inside it). This homogeneity of shade and bulb means that the whole fitting glows warmly.
Inga Sempé
Also an early catch was Inga Sempé, her w103 Sempé being issued in 2010:
There are colours!
The linear pendant...
...is a bar from which your choice of shades (and therefore colours) can be hung. As standard, there are bars for two and for three shades, but they will make up custom lengths.
If w103 Sempé is two masses joined by a delicate thin beam (in its table version), W163 Lampyre, is more monolithic. It is made of two opaline glass elements: a cylinder and a truncated cone. There are two sizes:
When turned on, they glow beautifully (as the name suggests):
Here's one in Kvadrat's flagship showroom in Copenhagen:
And this one is on the window sill in Inga Sempé's studio, next to her espresso machine collection:
BTW, she is the daughter of the cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, best known by anglophones for his New Yorker covers. We have a very large print of this one behind our kitchen table:
Who knew vast wealth could bring such contentment!
Claesson Kolvisto Rune
No-one is going to respond equally to all the work of such individual designers. Magnus knew this. If you want to sell things that no-one has strong feelings about, for or against, you ensure that they are bland (which is why the big American beer brands are made by chemists, not brewers). So I don't know about you, but I don't mind admitting that I have had trouble with Claesson Kolvisto Rune pieces before now, most notably at the wonderfully situated Hotel Skeppsholmen in Stockholm, where the lights in the rooms are from the now deleted w081 collection. They seemed to to be gratuitously cumbersome and heavy—the SUV of task lights.
Whereas W151 is fun, dramatic, even witty. There are three versions, all simple cones, but they are HUGE!!! Which is why w151 is called Extra Large Pendant:
This size means you can do things with them that you can do with few other luminaires (do get in touch if you'd like to know which other ones):
This is how HUGE there are:
On the other hand, you may want something that is a little bit more, well, little—more like this...
In which case, they've got your back. This is w201 Extra Small Pendant:
The question now was: How small can the pendant light become, whilst still being efficient? To deal with the heat generated by the LEDs, each shade is made from solid, die-cast aluminium. They come in satin black or white:
Nendo
No collection of the leading designers of our time could exclude Oki Sato, obvs. For Wästberg, he designed w132 Nendo, a kit of parts that includes three shade shapes...
...out of which a wide range of luminaires can be composed:
They include a pendant...
...and a table light that, with the addition of a pole, becomes a floor light!
Sam Hecht and Kim Colin (Industial Facility)
Sam Hecht and Kim Colin are probably best known for their work with Muji, for whom they have been "world designers" for more than 20 years. Once you know that, the context for the simple, strong design they came up with for Wästberg becomes clear. w182 is called Pastille and is based on a disc of light attached to a thin vertical stand. Here's the floor version:
Part of its success is the size of the "pastille"; most people would make it smaller. I bet you didn't realize that it's made from a bio-polyamide based on over 60% biologically-sourced material from the caster plant! This matters because it is a renewable and recyclable high-performance material that is warmly tactile. Wästberg use this material in other lights, as part of their commitment to sustainability. There is a wall version and a table version...
...that can also be attached to the edge of a desk using a clamp. Look how you dim it!
This delightful surprise also keeps the design clean—no messy swtiches, and no fishing around for a switch on the cord.
Dirk Winkel
Wästberg's cooperation with Dirk Winkel has been particularly productive. There are four designs by him currently in the catalogue, including w127 Winkel—their flagship product, their most award-winning and best selling task light.
This is the result of spending over three years developing the w127, aiming to make the most refined task light ever seen, "a sublime unity of parts, where every design choice is based on providing light that is nothing less than perfect". (Those parts are not concealed: the cable is deliberately exposed on one side, as is the spring on the other.).There would be no point if it did not work supremely well as a desk lamp, of course, so it provides an even spread of high-quality, dimmable light over a large surface. It has a built-in timer that switches it off after nine hours.
Even the material it is made from (the same bioplastic as w182 Pastille above) is beautifully tactile (again). After all, of all light types, it is the desk light that is touched most often.
The same attention to detail is seen in Dirk Winkel's w181 Linier. Because of the lack of showrooms in UK, lights are mostly bought on the basis of what they look like in pictures. This is real shame, because a lot of thought, effort, time and expense is invested by the best designers and brands in how their lights perform. When we create shortlists of options for you, this is a key criterion that rules lights in or out—it is no good if the pretty light you've specified disappoints the client when it is finally installed and in use.
From a distance, w181 Linier looks like many other linear pendants:
But look at it more closely and this is what you see...
...256 deep-recessed individual optical systems that ensure a crisp, directed light. They say, "Separate anti-glare compartments allow for a precisely defined field of warm, well-balanced and glare-fee light." And since it is essential (1) that the people in the room can adjust the light level to what they want it to be at that precise moment, and (2) that they can do this easily (e.g. they know where the control is, intuitively know how to use it, and can reach it), w181 Linier has dimming wheels at both ends. You can see one here:
Using them will create not only the right level of brightness, but also frissons of delight that will enliven any meeting! With 7100lms at 143lms per circuit watt and UGR <19, w181 Linier is super energy-efficient and fully office compliant.
Tham & Videgård Architects
Tham & Videgård may be less well-known internationally than some of the other designers here, but in w171 Alma, they've produced an absolute humdinger!
It is as much a sculpture as it is a light. The shape of the Ø69cm aluminium spinning is based on the curve of a rotated sine wave, and it has been given a satin matt finish. The play of light is so effective that, unusually for any light, it is more often off than on when photographed. But of course the contours resonate even more when it is on!
There is a wall version:
Yes, you can see the lamp, but there is no glare because it is silver-topped, casting a shadow-free ambient light as it is reflected off the surface of the luminaire. Here is the ceiling version...
...which is particularly useful when the ceiling is low. It still looks fascinating when viewed at an angle.
We see w171 Alma used in UK most often as a pendant, though.
It is so slim that it does not obscure the view of what it beyond it—a view out of a window or someone sitting opposite, for example. Several can easily be located over a meeting room table where they won't get in the way of the screen on the wall.
Look how they were used in this project, the SMRT HQ in Singapore:
It looks extravagant, but it turned out to be cheaper than putting in a ceiling. It also allows for the fashionable exposing of all the beams, fixings, wiring, HVAC kit etc. etc. (vide Terminal 5). But they did also use them en masse within a ceiling (i.e. as a ceiling light, rather than as a pendant)
I love the rhythm that they set up.
Truly a wonderful thing, and a fine note upon which to end this focus on Wästberg.
You probably want to specify some of these lights right now, so do get in touch with us to find out more—or to order one for yourself!
And do click here for the Wästberg web site.
PS It is here, when we are discussing Wästberg, that it is worth pointing out that Leonardo Da Vinci probably never said that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. The earliest reference to his having done so dates from 2000. However, in 1931, the American Playwright Clare Boothe Luce included this sentence in her novel Stuffed Shirts: “I have resolved to grow old, naturally and gracefully, content in the knowledge that the greatest intellects are the homeliest ones, and that the height of sophistication is simplicity.” More relevant to us is the New York Sun writing in 1936 that , “Modern Designers, Seeking After Sophistication, Get Simplicity.” For more on this, click here.
