Smoked Glass, Metallic Rim.
Hand-blown smoked glass with an unlacquered brass rim. The lamp that brought transparency back into the catalog. Featured in Domino, Apartment Therapy, House Beautiful.
Glass as a light source, not a vessel.
Smoked Glass was hand-blown into a tapered cylinder, finished with a brass rim hand-fitted to each piece because the glass tolerance was loose by design. Eighteen inches tall, slightly tinted, the smoke just enough to soften the bulb’s filament without hiding it.
The argument the lamp made was that glass had been treated as a secondary material in lamp design for a decade. Ceramic and metal carried the catalog. Glass, when handled correctly, isn’t a vessel for a bulb. It’s part of the light source. The smoke modulated the bulb’s color temperature in a way no shade could.
Production ran for three years. It came off the line in 2019 when the small-shop glassblower the studio used moved out of decorative work.
Blow. Tint. Fit by hand.
Three decisions that made the lamp work as architecture instead of as a decorative accessory, and still inform how the network’s designers think about glass fixtures.
01
Hand-blown, not pressed
Each piece blown by a single glassworker. The slight variation in wall thickness across pieces was what made the smoke gradient readable. Pressed glass would have been uniform and uninteresting.
02
Tinted at the furnace, not coated
The smoke color was added at the furnace stage by combining metal oxides with the molten glass. Coated alternatives existed and were cheaper. They also scratched and faded. The studio used the furnace method only.
03
Brass rim hand-fitted
The glass tolerance was wide on purpose. Every brass rim was hand-fitted to its specific piece, sanded if needed for fit. The lamp could not be assembled by a machine.
Glass as a light source didn’t go away.
The lamp is no longer made. The principle (glass is part of the light source, not a container for it) shows up in how the network’s designers think about pendant glass, sconce glass, and any fixture where the glass color affects what the bulb does in a room.