Vintage Postmodern Italian Model Wing 509 Table Lamp by Bruno Gecchelin, 1970s
By Bruno Gecchelin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Materials: Metal, Plastic Color: Black Styles: Postmodern Period: 1970s Country of Origin: Italy Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned Diamension: 20.47ʺW ...
Metal
Set of 2 Postmodern Italian Virgo Table Lamps by Ilalia Gibertini, 1990s
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Material: Aluminum, Plastic Color: Black Styles: Memphis, Postmodern Brand: Cassina Country of Origin: Italy Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned Diamensi...
Aluminum
$956Sale Price / set|25% Off
Pair of French Postmodern Table Lamps by Robert Kostka Enameled Forest Green
By Robert Kostka
Located in San Diego, CA
Fantastic rare pair of enameled forest green Memphis era postmodern table lamps, by Robert Kostka excellent condition hard to find. screw top to put shades . freshly rewired to US st...
Metal
Postmodern Italian Model Gli Table Lamp by Marco Zotta for Eleusi, 1980s
By Marco Zotta
Located in Hamburg, DE
Rare table lamp from the Italian manufacturer Eleusi based on a design by Marco Zotta from the 80s. The shape of this lamp follows a striking gesture. A flat angle, with two differe...
Metal
Postmodern Floor Lamp Kru Kiterra by Tiziano Inguanotto for Sem Luci Italy 1980s
Located in Kelkheim (Taunus), HE
Minimalist / Post-modern Floor Lamp Kru Kiterra by Tiziano Inguanotto for Sem Luci, Milano Italy. Designer Tiziano Inguanotto Maker Sem Luci, Milano Italy Era 1980s Material meta...
Metal
Set of 2 Postmodern Ring A400 Table Lamps by Bruno Gecchelin, Italy, 1970s
By Bruno Gecchelin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Postmodern table lights from the Italian manufacturer Arteluce according to a draft by Bruno Gecchelin from the late 1970s. This design convinces with its technical design language ...
Metal
Pair of large 80s Italian postmodern table lamps made of colored Murano glass
Located in München, DE
Pair of very rare large 1980s Italian Postmodern design table lamps made of Murano glass.
Metal, Chrome
Postmodern Memphis School Zen Floor Lamp by Gismondi for Artimede Made in Italy
By Ernesto Gismondi, Artimide
Located in New York, NY
Iconic Post - Modern, Memphis style halogen uplight floor lamp, designed by Ernesto Gismondi for Artimede, made in Italy circa 1980's. The lamp features two lights, a fixed lower sha...
Aluminum, Steel
$470Sale Price / set|50% Off
Postmodern Pair of "Delta" Table Lamps by Mario Bertorelle for JM RDM, 1980s
By Mario Bertorelle
Located in Badajoz, Badajoz
Unique Italian pair of table lamps by Mario Bertorelle, from 1980s. These pieces were made during the 1980s in Massanzago by JM RMD. These table lamps are named Delta. Delta is the ...
Plastic
$1,000Sale Price|20% Off
Postmodern Tina Terra Floor Lamp by King and Miranda for Sirrah Lighting, Italy
By Sirrah
Located in Miami, FL
Modern halogen torchiere floor lamp by Perry King and Santiago Miranda for Sirrah Lighting, Italy. The halogen lamp bulb can easily be replaced with a more energy efficient and co...
Metal
$1,375Sale Price / set|60% Off
Postmodern Set of Four of "Delta" Table Lamps by M. Bertorelle for JM RDM, 1980s
By Mario Bertorelle
Located in Badajoz, Badajoz
Unique Italian Set of Four Table Lamps by Mario Bertorelle, from 1980s. These pieces were designed and manufactured during the 1980s in Massanzago by JM RMD. These table lamps are na...
Plastic
Mid Century Modern Black and Lucite Floor Lamp/Side Table
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Postmodern Black Lucite Floor Lamp Side Table infuses sculptural elegance and smart functionality into modern interiors with luxe transparency.
Lucite
1980s Postmaster Deco Black Gloss Ceramic and Lucite Table Lamps - A Pair
Located in Delray Beach, FL
Postmodern black ceramic and lucite table lamps, pair with sculptural deco design.
Ceramic
$485Sale Price|52% Off
Italian Postmodern Ceiling Lamp in Yellow & Black Glass
Located in Esbjerg, DK
A tall mallet shaped hanging light featuring a cylindrical hand-blown yellow and black glass. Made anonymously in Italy during the 1980s. Measurements: H: 40 cm, Diameter: 10/6 cm (b...
Blown Glass, Opaline Glass
1980 Bieffeplast Postmodern Italian Design Black White Wall Lamp Sconces
By Bieffeplast
Located in Brescia, IT
Pair of Post Modern Sconces prod. Bieffeplast Italy, 1980 Black metal grind and white bent plexiglass Black and White metal wall frame They work with a neon light. Perfect working o...
Metal
Postmodern Italian Black Titania Pendant Lamp by Alberto Meda and Paolo Rizzatto
By Paolo Rizzatto, Alberto Meda
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Materials: Metal, Plastic Color: Black Styles: Postmodern Period: 1980s Country of Origin: Italy Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned Diamension: 27.95ʺW ...
Metal
$1,440Sale Price / set|40% Off
Luci Accademia Wall Lamp Postmodern Style pair
By Shigeaki Asahara, luci
Located in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Accademia postmodern style wall lamp. Designed by Asahara Shigeaki in the 80s.
Steel
Vintage Aluminum Ceiling Lamp Postmodern Memphis Style, 1980s
Located in Montecalvoli, IT
Vintage Aluminum Ceiling Lamp - 1980s Postmodern Memphis Style - Purple & Green, Striped Cable, Pop Art Interior, Retro Lighting, Zig Zag Accent your room with this eye-catching met...
Aluminum
Vintage Postmodern Counterweight Pendant Lamp from Metalarte, 1980s
By Metalarte
Located in Hamburg, DE
Imposing train pendant lamp of the spanish manufacturer metalarte. A postmodern design with elaborate details.
Metal
Vintage German Postmodern Metal Pendant Lamp from Cosack
By Cosack Leuchten
Located in Hamburg, DE
Particularly striking about this lamp is the play with the transparency of the reflector shade made of black perforated sheet metal.
Metal
Postmodern German Minimalist Clamp Lamp from Erco, 1980s
By Erco
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Materials: Metal, Plastic Styles: Minimalist, Postmodern Country of Origin: Germany Period: 1970s Color: Black Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned Dimens...
Metal
Exceptional Sergio Asti MS1 Postmodern Wall Lamp, 1980s
By Superego, Sergio Asti
Located in Renens, CH
Exceptional Sergio Asti MS1 Postmodern wall lamp, 1980s Post-modern wall lamp by award winning Italian architect Sergio Asti, who is well known for his works such as the fibre gla...
Metal
Vintage Italian Postmodern Model Gradi Mini Parete Wall Lamp, 1990s
By Franco Bettonica
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Material: Glass Color: Black Styles: Postmodern Country of Origin: Italy Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned Diamension: 8.66ʺW × 7.09ʺD × 7.48ʺL Conditi...
Metal
Postmodern Italian Model Megaron Parete Wall Lamp by Gianfranco Frattini, 1970s
By Gianfranco Frattini
Located in Hamburg, DE
Additional information: Materials: Metal Color: Black Styles: Postmodern Brand: Artemide Designer: Gianfranco Frattini Country of Origin: Italy Item Type: Vintage, Antique or Pre-own...
Metal
Postmodern Adjustable Ceiling Lamp Lift by Jean-Marc Da Costa, 1980s
Located in Hamburg, DE
The supply line is routed via a black spiral cable. It is only in detail that you can see the finely crafted elements of the lamp head.
Metal
A Pair of POSTMODERN NEOCLASSICAL Wall LAMPS Sconces France 1990-2000
Located in PARIS, FR
A thin and elegant pair of (double) wall appliques sconces, to be attributed, France 1990-2000. Each sample consists in a single curved wall base with 2 short arms holding 2 long ver...
Metal
Italian Postmodern Warrior Wall Lamp by Emanuele Ricci for Sidecar Artemide
By Artemide, Emanuele Ricci
Located in Hamburg, DE
Rare warrior wall lamp from the italian manufacturer sidecar (artemide) based on a design by emanuele ricci from the early 90s. the name is reflected in the appearance of this lamp,...
Metal
Set of 2 Postmodern Italian Model Piatto D9 Wall Lamps for Luceplan
By Lucepan
Located in Hamburg, DE
Set of 2 Postmodern Italian Model Piatto D9 Wall Lamps by Sandro Colbertaldo and Paolo Rizzatto for Luceplan Elegant wall lights from the italian manufacturer luceplan based on a de...
Metal
Postmodern Italian Le Stelle 1560 Ceiling or Wall Lamp Paolo Piva Arteluce 1980s
By Arteluce, Paolo Piva
Located in Hamburg, DE
Postmodern Italian Model Le Stelle 1560 Ceiling or Wall Lamps by Paolo Piva for Arteluce, 1980s Italian wall and ceiling lights by Arteluce, designed by Paolo Piva in the 1980s. A ...
Metal
German Postmodern Mesh Wall or Ceiling Lamp by Roger Tallon for Erco, 1970s
By ERCO Leuchten, Roger Tallon
Located in Hamburg, DE
The lamp features the characteristic, spherical diffuser made of black wire mesh.
Metal
Set of 2 Postmodern Italian Aton Parete Wall Lamp by Ernesto Gismondi, 1980s
By Ernesto Gismondi
Located in Hamburg, DE
Two rare wall lights from the Italian manufacturer Artemide after a draft by Ernesto Gismondi from the 80s. The wall lights version from the well -known Aton light series. A technic...
Metal
$680Sale Price|20% Off
Postmodern Black & Brass Halogen Desk Lamp Inspired by Sonneman
By George Kovacs, Ettore Sottsass, Robert Sonneman
Located in Moreno Valley, CA
Vintage Postmodern desk or bankers lamp in the style of Robert Sonneman for George Kovacs from the 1980s.
Metal, Brass
Postmodern design was a short-lived movement that manifested itself chiefly in Italy and the United States in the early 1980s. The characteristics of vintage postmodern furniture and other postmodern objects and decor for the home included loud-patterned, usually plastic surfaces; strange proportions, vibrant colors and weird angles; and a vague-at-best relationship between form and function.
ORIGINS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGN
POSTMODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW
VINTAGE POSTMODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS
Critics derided postmodern design as a grandstanding bid for attention and nothing of consequence. Decades later, the fact that postmodernism still has the power to provoke thoughts, along with other reactions, proves they were not entirely correct.
Postmodern design began as an architectural critique. Starting in the 1960s, a small cadre of mainly American architects began to argue that modernism, once high-minded and even noble in its goals, had become stale, stagnant and blandly corporate. Later, in Milan, a cohort of creators led by Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini — a onetime mentor to Sottsass and a key figure in the Italian Radical movement — brought the discussion to bear on design.
Sottsass, an industrial designer, philosopher and provocateur, gathered a core group of young designers into a collective in 1980 they called Memphis. Members of the Memphis Group, which would come to include Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Marco Zanini, Shiro Kuramata, Michele de Lucchi and Matteo Thun, saw design as a means of communication, and they wanted it to shout. That it did: The first Memphis collection appeared in 1981 in Milan and broke all the modernist taboos, embracing irony, kitsch, wild ornamentation and bad taste.
Memphis works remain icons of postmodernism: the Sottsass Casablanca bookcase, with its leopard-print plastic veneer; de Lucchi’s First chair, which has been described as having the look of an electronics component; Martine Bedin’s Super lamp: a pull-toy puppy on a power-cord leash. Even though it preceded the Memphis Group’s formal launch, Sottsass’s iconic Ultrafragola mirror — in its conspicuously curved plastic shell with radical pops of pink neon — proves striking in any space and embodies many of the collective’s postmodern ideals.
After the initial Memphis show caused an uproar, the postmodern movement within furniture and interior design quickly took off in America. (Memphis fell out of fashion when the Reagan era gave way to cool 1990’s minimalism.) The architect Robert Venturi had by then already begun a series of plywood chairs for Knoll Inc., with beefy, exaggerated silhouettes of traditional styles such as Queen Anne and Chippendale. In 1982, the new firm Swid Powell enlisted a group of top American architects, including Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Stanley Tigerman and Venturi to create postmodern tableware in silver, ceramic and glass.
On 1stDibs, the vintage postmodern furniture collection includes chairs, coffee tables, sofas, decorative objects, table lamps and more.
The right table lamp, outwardly sculptural chandelier or understated wall pendant can work wonders for your home. While we’re indebted to thinkers like Thomas Edison for critically important advancements in lighting and electricity, we’re still finding new ways to customize illumination to fit our personal spaces all these years later. A wide range of antique and vintage lighting can be found on 1stDibs.
Today, lighting designers like the self-taught Bec Brittain have used the flexible structure of LEDs to craft glamorous solutions by working with what is typically considered a harsh lighting source. By integrating glass and mirrors, reflection can be used to soften the glow from LEDs and warmly welcome light into any space.
Although contemporary innovators continue to impress, some of the classics can’t be beat.
Just as gazing at the stars allows you to glimpse the universe’s past, vintage chandeliers like those designed by Gino Sarfatti and J. & L. Lobmeyr, for example, put on a similarly stunning show, each with a rich story to tell.
As dazzling as it is, the Arco lamp, on the other hand, prioritizes functionality — it’s wholly mobile, no drilling required. Designed in 1962 by architect-product designers Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, the piece takes the traditional form of a streetlamp and creates an elegant, arching floor fixture for at-home use.
There is no shortage of modernist lighting similarly prized by collectors and casual enthusiasts alike — there are Art Deco table lamps created in a universally appreciated style, the Tripod floor lamp by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Greta Magnusson Grossman's sleek and minimalist Grasshopper lamps and, of course, the wealth of mid-century experimental lighting that emerged from Italian artisans at Arredoluce, FLOS and many more are hallmarks in illumination innovation.
With decades of design evolution behind it, home lighting is no longer just practical. Crystalline shaping by designers like Gabriel Scott turns every lighting apparatus into a luxury accessory. A new installation doesn’t merely showcase a space; carefully chosen ceiling lights, table lamps and floor lamps can create a mood, spotlight a favorite piece or highlight your unique personality.
The sparkle that your space has been missing is waiting for you amid the growing collection of antique, vintage and contemporary lighting for sale on 1stDibs.