Monachella Azucena

To join the centenarian club is a remarkable feat in itself, but to live for over a century and leave a lasting impact on the world of Italian mid-century modern furniture design — just as pioneering industrial designer and architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni had — is extraordinary. His vintage table lamps, coffee tables, chairs and other furnishings are demonstrative of exemplary technique, theory and quality workmanship — all characteristics of the Milanese designer’s signature style.

Caccia Dominioni graduated from Milan’s oldest university, the Polytechnic University of Milan, in 1936. A leading center for design innovation during the first half of the 20th century, the institution’s alumni includes notable Italian architects and designers such as Gio Ponti, Vittoriano Vigano and brothers Livio and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. In 1937, the Castiglioni brothers and Caccia Dominioni opened a multi-award winning studio together and presented groundbreaking designs for radios in Bakelite shells at the 1940 Milan Triennial.

The Second World War forced Caccia Dominioni to pause his professional ambitions in order to serve in the Italian military, and the postwar years saw much of his most esteemed designs take shape. In 1947, alongside Ignazio Gardella and Corrado Corradi Dell’Acqua, Caccia Dominioni founded the furniture manufacturing company Azucena, where he designed iconic pieces such as the Catalina chair and a range of lighting that includes the Lp10 wall light, the Lsp3 wall light and the Lsp6 flush mount light.

Like a fine Italian wine, Caccia Dominioni got even better with time. He collaborated with the likes of Olivari and Lualdi well into his 80s, debuting legendary pieces such as the C.d.o. chair and the Super door. And while many of his celebrated architectural works materialized during the 1950s and 1960s — such as the Teatro Filodrammatici and the Galleria Strasburgo — one of Caccia Dominioni’s best known structures, the fountain in Milan’s Piazza San Babila, was built near the end of 20th century when the designer was 83 years old.

Caccia Dominioni was a winner of the Compasso d’Oro, one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in the design industry. When he died at 103 in 2016, he left behind an exceptional legacy of furniture design and architectural innovations.

Find vintage Luigi Caccia Dominioni chandeliers and pendants, floor lamps, armchairs and other furniture on 1stDibs.

The modern floor lamp is an evolution of torchères — tall floor candelabras that originated in France as a revolutionary development in lighting homes toward the end of the 17th century. Owing to the advent of electricity and the introduction of new materials as a part of lighting design, floor lamps have taken on new forms and configurations over the years. 

In the early 1920s, Art Deco lighting artisans worked with dark woods and modern metals, introducing unique designs that still inspire the look of modern floor lamps developed by contemporary firms such as Luxxu. 

Popular mid-century floor lamps include everything from the enchanting fixtures by the Italian lighting artisans at Stilnovo to the distinctly functional Grasshopper floor lamp created by Scandinavian design pioneer Greta Magnusson-Grossman to the Paracarro floor lamp by the Venetian master glass workers at Mazzega. Among the more celebrated names in mid-century lighting design are Milanese innovators Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, who, along with their eldest brother, Livio, worked for their own firm as architects and designers. While Livio departed the practice in 1952, Achille and Pier Giacomo would go on to design the Arco floor lamp, the Toio floor lamp and more for legendary lighting brands such as FLOS. 

Today’s upscale interiors frequently integrate the otherworldly custom lighting solutions created by a wealth of contemporary firms and designers such as Spain’s Masquespacio, whose Wink floor lamps integrate gold as well as fabric fringes. 

Visual artists and industrial designers have a penchant for floor lamps, possibly because they’re so often a clever marriage of design and the functions of lighting. A good floor lamp can change the mood of any room while adding a touch of elegance to your entire space. Find yours now on 1stDibs.