RIP Design Legend Ingo Maurer, Who Was More Relevant Than Ever

In a strange twist of fate, we had a story on the recent resurgence of legendary lighting designer Ingo Maurer on our calendar for today, even before we’d heard of his passing at the age of 87. We had of course followed Maurer’s work over our 15 years in the design world, but while we appreciated the audacity of Maurer’s more purposefully kitschy designs — including a series of bird chandeliers made from winged bulbs, a floor lamp resembling Mickey Mouse, and a Warhol-esque pendant made from bottles of Campari — we’d never gone full in on them (though we do admit a soft spot for his lamp inspired by Alice Cooper). To focus solely on those designs, though, is to ignore Maurer’s sheer breadth of output, and to dismiss a collection of lights that have recently felt more contemporary and relevant than ever.

We first began noticing Maurer’s Lampampe light — which features a gently crumpled Japanese paper body — popping up earlier this year in styled interiors by younger designers on Instagram, most recently in Laila Gohar and Omar Sosa’s Chinatown apartment in T Magazine (above). His palm-fan Uchiwa lights are running a close second, becoming the new go-to for a kind of neutral chic-but-rustic elegance in hotels like the Palm Heights in Grand Cayman and Kelly Wearstler’s Santa Monica Proper Hotel. But there’s a whole host of other designs we’ve been noticing and loving lately — many of which are still in production, all of which can be found vintage — including his first ever fixture, an oversized bulb in chromium-plated metal and hand-blown glass that was originally created for an installation at Herman Miller’s Munich showroom. We hope you love them too.

Top photo: Blaine Davis