Paul Mayen Lamp for Habitat

X-base cocktail or side table of two intersecting planes of highly polished cast aluminum, with a tinted 3/4 inch glass top with rounded edges and polished sides. Designed by Paul Ma...

Rare hanging fixture composed of four glass cylinders of varying heights and diameters, arranged in a spiral pattern; each held by three protruding brass-plated rods. Designed by Pau...

Table lamp of aluminum and glazed twine wrapping with an original textile shade manufactured by the Mutual Sunset Lamp Company circa 1940’s. Stamped MSLC underneath along with 4729, ...

Table lamp model 600P by renowned Italian lighting designer Gino Sarfatti, produced by Arteluce, circa 1966. An early example with the cut-o...

Sculptural desk lamp with adjustable fiberglass fins, cut and enameled aluminum diffuser and base, and a wooden ball pull. Made in 1957 by Jo Mead Designs of Chicago. Jo(sephine) Mead was one of the first female students to attend the Chicago School of Design under Moholy-Nagy. The present lamp preceded Verner Panton’s Moon Lamp (1960) and Superstudio’s Gherpe lamp...

Table lamp composed of an enameled steel tube with a tiltable Fiberglas reflector shade, designed and produced by Asian/American designer and educator Bill Lam in 1952. William M.C. (Bill) Lam (1924-2012), a pioneer in architectural lighting, was born and raised in Hawaii, entering MIT in 1941 and graduating with a degree in architecture in 1949 after serving as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in WWII. Influenced by Alvar Aalto and Charles Eames, both visiting professors at MIT, Lam established a small atelier, Lam Workshop, outside Boston in the late 1940’s, producing a series of his own lighting designs and a two-level cocktail table that gained widespread recognition in the national design press, earning MoMA Good Design selections in 1950 and 1951 as well as inclusion in close to 50 museum collections and exhibitions throughout the United States and distribution through Lightolier, Richards-Morgenthau (Raymor), Bloomingdale’s, Carroll Sagar, and numerous other showrooms and shops offering and promoting modern furnishings. His designs were merit specified for California Art & Architecture’s Case Study House program in 1950, featured in the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art’s Current Design quarterlies and in Furniture Forum, and chosen by General Electric and Westinghouse for model homes to demonstrate how to use light to best advantage. Lam would cease producing these designs in the later 1950’s, shifting his attention to the design and manufacture of prefabricated architectural lighting systems along with consulting, teaching, and writing—he taught lighting design at Harvard and MIT and authored two influential books for the lighting design profession. His 1950 drum-shaped lite-table was one of the first consumer products made of fiberglass reinforced plastic—it was shown alongside the Eames/Evans plastic shell chair in period ads for the material. He designed a fiberglass clip-on light diffuser fixture around the same time; it appeared in the Winter 1951/52 issue of Current Design with a date of design of April 1951. With a 14” diameter, it was pitched as a ceiling fixture or sconce and was intended to be “almost unbreakable and absolutely washable.” This element was then included in two pivoting armature wall lamps—one a Good Design selection--and a gooseneck floor lamp. All these designs emphasized functionality, flexibility, and economy and emitted light with a soft intimate glow. The present design was clearly to be part of this series—a steel cylinder using the fiberglass fixture to diffuse and throw light. The lamp was included in a lighting survey in Interiors in June, 1952. The description—"a tiltable Fiberglas reflector on a steel tube in enameled white, black, red or gray”--suggests that the lamp was intended for serial production and indicates that the tilting mechanism was integral to the design (the tilting finial on the lamp shows a patent date of 1942). Tilting the fixture through a range of motion to change how light is thrown locates the lamp in dialogue with several winning entries in the MoMA 1951...

For your consideration is this pair of modern, angled, aluminum cylinder lamps by Paul Mayen for Habitat which feature clean modern forms, origi...

Midcentury, modernist, lollipop table lamp by Paul Mayen for Habitat features a thick polypropylene globe shade with patinated brass pole on a 5.25...

A fantastic representation of innovative lighting design and the mid-century obsession with the space race, this table lamp by Paul Mayen for Habitat features a glass globe suspended...

Paul Mayen Angled cylinder table lamp by for Habitat, circa 1970.

Classic Mod design table lamp designed by Paul Mayer for Habitat. The lamp features a black dome shade with a chrome base. The lamp accepts two standard siz...

Paul Mayen forr Habitat International desk lamp, polished Aluminum USA, 1960s