Tapio Wirkkala (Finnish, 1915 - 1985) Lot n° 13

Desk Lamp Prototype - c.1959 Brass and lightbulb 79 x 45 x 10 cm Manufactured by Idman Oy With Idman mark Unique prototype by Tapio Wirkkala for the Idman Oy lighting manufactury. The counterweight structure for this desk lamp can already be found in the K 10-11 lamp as published in the 1958 Idman catalog. It is in 1959 that Wirkkala started exploring the possibilities of altering the shape of the lightbulb itself. Instead of focusing on the design of the lampshade, Wirkkala came up with the ingenious idea to design a lightbulb that was beautiful in its own right. The WIR105 lightbulb for this desklamp is actually one of the few lightbulbs included in the collection of the MoMA (inv. 258.1962). In this prototype we can see how Wirkkala restricted his design of the lamp head to a simple cylinder, allowing the lightbulb to shine, both in a literal and a figurative manner of speaking. The lamp comes with three lightbulbs: a white, a blue and a pink one.