Alberto Rosselli for Fontana Arte Table Lamp in Crystal Glass

Alberto Rosselli for Fontana Arte, table lamp model ‘2504’, glass, crystal glass, chromium plated brass, Italy, 1968

This extremely rare table lamp is designed by Alberto Rosselli for Fontana Arte, founded in 1932 by Gio Ponti as an artistic division of Luigi Fontana’s glass firm Luigi Fontana & Co., and joined by the atelier of Pietro Chiesa. The Italian designing company is specialized in producing exclusive furniture items manufactured in the highest-quality materials, mainly glass. This particular table lamp convinces visually by means of Rosselli’s implementation of pure forms. The cylindrical column is executed in white glass that cleverly diffuses the light. Three crystal glass sheets surround the light, which enhance the lamp’s structural solidity. The dark toned crystal gets beautifully highlighted when the light is turned on. This lamp engages us with a captivating composition of simplistic forms that simultaneously act as the divining elements of this specific design.

Alberto Rosselli (1921-1976) was born in Palermo, capital of the island of Sicily in Italy. After he graduated in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1947, he stayed and worked in Milan. In 1950, Rosselli, Gio Ponti, and Antonio Fornaroli formed the architecture/design firm Studio Ponti Fornaroli Rosselli (P.F.R) where he worked on his first architectural project ‘Pirelli Tower’ in 1954. During the same year, with the help of Ponti, he founded and directed his own journal titled ‘Stile Industria’, which focused on improving the relationship between design and industry in Italy. The issues incorporated topics that touched on different disciplines, such as design, architecture, and arts, which made significant contributions to the design discourse until its last publication in 1963. He became an acknowledged pioneer of industrial design, co-founding the Association for Industrial Design (ADI) in 1956, and between 1961 and 1963, working as a vice-president for the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). Here, he pursued a career in the academic field where he developed new teaching that embodied sophisticated methodological principles. He introduced the concept and process of “decision-making” in design to the faculty of architecture in the University of Milan. Rosselli passed away in 1976, who left his mark as an architect, designer, and university lecture, a man known for his theoretical approach to industrial design.

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