Genius of the Lamp

As Gismondi said a few years ago, “There was nothing like it when we introduced it. It was revolutionary. Tizio looks beautiful in any position, a harmonious object in all its parts that you can move with one hand and is always extremely precise. We haven’t changed it one bit over the years because it is perfect the way it is.”

Tizio looks beautiful in any position

An elegant synthesis of intelligent components. A timeless product, a real classic, featured in the Permanent Design Collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York CIty. An object that implies Sapper’s taste for mechanics, as his designer career started as at Mercedes Benz styling department in Stuttgart before moving to Milan in 1958, where he collaborated with the likes of architects Gio Ponti and Marco Zanuso and won two Golden Compasses.

Tizio was one of the first desk lamps to use halogen bulbs, back in 1972, with arms carrying low voltage and eliminating the need for wires. Today, it is one of the best-selling lamps ever. "I wanted a desk lamp that could be adjusted with the touch of a finger and that wouldn't fall on the desk because of worn joints," was Sapper’s comment on the many anecdotes surrounding the lamp’s creation.

From jars of jam filled with water to adjust the counterweights to the addition of the rod with the red ball on the head, to prevent contact with the support surface, a safety measure required by the Danish government, which became a standing feature. Tizio’s morphology combines solid primitive elements, both geometric and curved as well as angular and soft, creating a harmonious visual balance. Because collectible design has the one absolute rule that everything must remain exactly as it is, even in an era of planned obsolescence.