Iconic Lamp Designs

A gallery of the lamps that became design classics, from Tiffany leaded glass and the Bauhaus workshop to the Italian lighting boom that ran from the 1960s into the 1980s. Each one earned its place by solving a real lighting problem in a way designers still borrow: a spring-balanced arm, a shade that hides the bulb, a marble base heavy enough to carry an arc across a room. These are the shapes worth learning to recognize in museums, design shops and secondhand listings, where lookalikes are easy to find. Each caption names the designer, the maker and the year, and the detail that explains why the design lasted.