Harvey Guzzini may sound like a single designer, but it was actually a mid-century Italian lighting company started by six brothers in the Guzzini family: Giovanni, Raimondo, Giuseppe, Adolfo, Virgilio and Giannunzio. The first part of the name was an homage to the 1950 film Harvey. Compounding the historical record even further, it seems that the Guzzini company rebranded many times in the 20th century, going by, at various points, Harvey Creazioni, Guzzini, Illuminazione Guzzini and iGuzzini.

The Harvey Guzzini brand produced a range of fixtures during the postwar years, including table lamps, floor lamps and pendant lights.

Harvey Guzzini was founded in 1959 in a room of Giovanni's home in the town of Recanati. Initially, the company was focused on making copper decorative objects. The brothers quickly established their own studio space and, in 1963, they expanded into lighting production. The following year, they hired prolific Italian designer Luigi Massoni as head of design. In addition to Harvey Guzzini, Massoni was involved with many of Italy’s most influential brands, such as Poltrona Frau and Alessi.

Another key to the growing success of Harvey Guzzini was partnerships with a number of Italy's most prominent designers, including Gio Ponti, Fabio Lenci, Rodolfo Bonetto, Cesare Casati and Ennio Lucini.

From 1967 to 1968, Harvey Guzzini also participated in “Domus: Formes Italiennes,” an exhibition held at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. By 1969, the company had grown into one of the best-known design firms in the country and opened a retail outlet in central Milan. Famous Harvey Guzzini designs include Massoni and Luciano Buttura's Mushroom table lamp (1965) as well as the in-house designed Arc floor lamp (1968), Faro table lamp (1970) and Toledo table lamp (1973).

In 1974, Harvey Guzzini rebranded as iGuzzini. The company introduced a range of new and technically advanced lighting fixtures, including low-voltage halogen lamps. In 1977, iGuzzini organized the first Italian lighting design conference. In 1991, it was awarded the Compasso d'Oro for its commitment to design.

Today, iGuzzini remains headquartered in Recanati and is a leading international architectural lighting group with a rich heritage spanning more than six decades since its early days as Harvey Guzzini. The company creates lighting fixtures for workplaces, city infrastructure and even cultural heritage sites.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of vintage Harvey Guzzini table lamps, floor lamps and other lighting.

A Close Look at space-age Furniture

Vintage Space Age furniture captured post–World War II optimism with swooping shapes, bowed lines and experimentation with new materials including plastic and fiberglass.

From the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957 to the landing of Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon in 1969, the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States propelled advancements in technology that transformed culture. Space Age design encompassed fashion, architecture, cars, furniture and objects for the home, bringing wonder and hope for the future into everyday life.

Coinciding with Pop art, Space Age style featured bold colors and forms. Eero Aarnio’s Ball chair, which debuted in 1966, used molded fiberglass for a capsule-like space while Verner Panton’s 1959 Panton chair was a single piece of molded plastic for a gravity-defying S shape. Red versions of Olivier Mourgue’s 1964 Djinn chair were futuristic enough to appear on the space station in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today, Joe Colombo is revered as a master of modern Italian design thanks to the provocative modular furniture pieces he created, such as the Tube chair and the Elda armchair, both of which embody the future-forward spirit of the Space Age.

The Space Age spirit extended to home building too. The futuristic Case Study Houses, which were designed by the likes of Pierre Koenig, Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra and Whitney R. Smith, are considered a high point of modernism and the Southern California lifestyle.

Sometimes the nods to space exploration were more literal, like moon and star motifs or the 1965 Eclisse lamp by Vico Magistretti that saw the mid-century Italian designer integrating a movable inner shade to “eclipse” the light source. Alongside the pioneering moon missions, JVC manufactured the Videosphere portable television reminiscent of the Apollo 11 space helmets.

Although the style faded in the 1970s — with the 1975 joining of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts signaling a new era of cooperation and the global oil crisis impacting the availability of plastics — the era’s innovations influenced designers into the 21st century such as Zaha Hadid and Djivan Schapira.

Find a collection of vintage Space Age seating, tables, lighting and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Finding the Right sconces-wall-lights for You

From the kitchen to the bedroom and everywhere in between, there is one major part of home decor that you definitely want to master: lighting. It’s no longer merely practical — carefully selected wall lights and sconces can do wonders in establishing mood and highlighting your distinctive personality.

We’re a long way from the candelabra-inspired chandeliers of the medieval era. Lighting designers have been creating and reinventing lighting solutions for eons. Because of the advancements crafted by these venturesome makers, we now have the opportunity to bring unique, customizable lighting solutions into our homes. It’s never been easier to create dramatic bedrooms, cozy kitchen areas and cheerful bars than it is today. Think of an elegant wall sconce as functional as well as a work of art, adding both light and style to your hallways, whimsical kids’ rooms and elsewhere.

When choosing a lighting solution, first determine what your needs are: Will you opt for a moody or a bright feel? The room that will serve as your home office will need adequate lighting — think “the brighter, the better” for this particular setting. For the bedroom, bedside wall lamps with warm-temperature bulbs could be the way to go to induce a sense of calm or intimacy. Try to match the style of the wall light or sconce that you’re installing to the overall design scheme of your room. It’s never “just a light.” You should approach the lighting of a room with a mindset that is one part practical and one part aesthetics-driven.

Let 1stDibs help you set the mood with the right wall lights and sconces for your home. Our collection includes every kind of fixture, from sculptural works by Austrian craftsman J.T. Kalmar to chic industrial-style wall sconces, from adjustable painted aluminum wall lamps designed by Artemide to a wide variety of minimalist mid-century modern masterpieces.