4. Golden Gate
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Nanda Vigo, floor lamp Golden Gate, 1970 - Edition Arredoluce - Steel, neon, LED - Courtesy of Galleria Luisa Delle Piane © Valérie Sadoun
Like Golden Gate, most of the objects created by Nanda Vigo involve manufacturing processes, despite being close to a craft practice, produced in small series. This floor lamp is the product of a special collaboration with Angelo Lelii, founder of the Italian firm Arredoluce. Their research led to the creation of a specific machine, designed by Lelii, for bending and cutting stainless-steel pipes to incorporate curved neon tubes. Innovative in its form and the technology used, Golden Gate (1968) became an icon of Italian design.
It was on a trip to San Francisco that Lelii suggested renaming the lamp, originally called Futurama. Its new name, Golden Gate, refers to the famous red bridge linking the peninsula to the town of Sausalito.
Post card from Angelo Lelii to Nanda Vigo, 1970 - Courtesy of Archivio Nanda Vigo, Milan
Sketch (facsimile) of the Golden Gate of Angelo Lelii to Nanda Vigo, 1970 - Courtesy of Archivio Nanda Vigo, Milan
© Valérie Sadoun
Post card from Angelo Lelii to Nanda Vigo, 1970 - Courtesy of Archivio Nanda Vigo, Milan
Fascinated by Vigo’s work, the entrepreneur devoted entire trips to her projects, in search of the latest technological advances. The lamp’s red LED may be cheap and commonplace today, but at the time they were produced and supplied only by NASA, for the control panels of the great calculators used for the Apollo mission. Lelii went in person to Cape Canaveral to procure some. Only a small number of copies of the floor lamp were produced at the time, given how difficult it was to make, the disproportionate cost of production and the rarity of the LED tubes.
Over two metres tall, this imposing floor lamp is today considered a design archetype, which earned Vigo the New York Award for International Design in 1974 and the Milan industrial design award in 1976.
Nanda Vigo, floor lamp Golden Gate, 1970 - Edition Arredoluce - Steel, neon, LED - Courtesy of Galleria Luisa Delle Piane © Valérie Sadoun