Model 2093-80, Olivier Mourgue 1968 Standing/Table 'Flower' Lamp

The workshop of prolific designer Pierre Disderot was the birthplace of modern French lighting. The mid-century modern table lamps, floor lamps and wall lights that resulted from his collaborations with major names in design influenced lighting in the decades that followed.

Disderot was born in Paris in 1920. He studied engineering, but was drawn to design and architecture. He subsequently enrolled at L'École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and École Boulle, where he was inspired by the Scandinavian lighting designers of the 1940s. In 1948, he established his own manufacturing company, Atelier Pierre Disderot, in the Parisian suburb of Cachan.

In the early 1950s, Disderot met Pierre Guariche and Michel Mortier, two up-and-coming French designers. Together, the three luminaries launched a series of lighting fixtures featuring an updated modern style. Disderot, who had a knack for surrounding himself with the best, also established partnerships with Jacques Dumond, Joseph-André Motte, Pierre Gautier-Delaye, Pierre Paulin, Bernard Durussel and Roger Fatus.

Postwar exuberance marked the 1950s in France. Disderot’s studio reflected this attitude, creating designs that were more organic and colorful, with articulated pivots and arms for increased functionality and style. His openness to collaboration, and his willingness to provide designers with the tools and technology they needed, spurred both technical and aesthetic innovation in lighting.

In the 1960s, the growing company relocated to a large warehouse in Choisy-le-Roi. By this time, Disderot was taking orders from architects and interior designers as well as public commissions for buildings like Orly airport. He began buying licenses for products on the cutting edge of design, such as the Rotaflex line of chic, beehive-style lighting fixtures.

After more than three successful decades, Disderot sold his company in 1984 to focus on teaching and union activities. He died in 1991.

The company he started remains in operation today under the name Disderot, which continues to release updated models of fixtures from the 1950s through the 1970s.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Pierre Disderot lighting.

With its undulating, futuristic and playful form, it’s easy to see why filmmaker Stanley Kubrick chose to use Olivier Mourgue’s iconic Djinn chair in his 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the French artist and industrial designer is known for much more than the Space Age Djinn. From his whimsical Flower floor lamps to his anthropomorphic Bouloum chair, Mourgue is renowned as an important contributor to the 1960s Pop art era of modern furniture design.

Born in Paris in 1939, Mourgue grew up in an apartment filled with Empire-style antique furniture, which he derided as having “nothing to do with life.” He later studied art at Paris’s École Boulle, graduating in 1958. He then attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.

In 1959, his former teacher at École Boulle, Marcel Merpillat, encouraged him to present a chair he designed at a competition hosted by furniture manufacturer Airborne. Airborne founder Charles Bernard was impressed by Mourgue’s design, which featured a leather-upholstered seat attached to a chrome steel frame; it was produced by the company under the name the Joker. Mourgue designed several other mid-century modern pieces for Airborne throughout the 1960s, including the Whist chaise longue, the rotund Montreal chair, the unique Cubique chair and the Djinn series, which first appeared in 1964.

In addition to Airborne, Mourgue has designed for furniture manufacturers such as Disderot and Prisunic, and collaborated with British architect and designer Sir Norman Foster and Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa.

Mourgue worked for Le Mobilier National to design the French Pavilion for Montreal’s Expo ‘67. In 1968, he received the International Design Award from the Institute of Interior Designers in New York for the Djinn lounge chair. He also exhibited several of his works at Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan.

Today, Mourgue’s pieces are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of vintage Olivier Mourgue seating, lighting and more.