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

Lampampe

Juliette Wanty

Set design for Home Style by Juliette Wanty, photo by Wendy Fenwick

Phoebe Nicol

Phoebe Nicol

Kim Coleman

Kim Coolmon

Jonathan sheffer _AD

Jonathan Sheffer’s home in Architectural Digest, photo by Tim Williams

Uchiwa

304_PalmHeights_ 862

Uchiwa lights in the lobby of the under-renovation Palm Heights Grand Cayman. Lead designer Sarita Posada, photography by Brooke Shanesy

City Furniture

City Furniture

Uchiwa Beton Brut Beton Brut copy

Beton Brut

SM PRPER AK 3

Santa Monica Proper Hotel by Kelly Wearstler

Bulb

bulb-table-lamp-ingo-maurer

Bulb Bulb

IMG_0071

Spirale

2a-1-1500x1200

Cork Lamp

E076-Ingo-Maurer-cork-lamp-4-1024x1024 E076-Ingo-Maurer-cork-lamp-2-1024x1024

Bamboo

10a-1500x1200

Gulp

34a-1-1500x1200

Knot 1

knot_table_1_black_on

Galgen

a1043_Ingo-Maurer-Galgen-Losange-BD_003 a1043Ingo-Maurer-Galgen-Triangle-BD_001

a1043 Gallery

Big M

430_1_design_june_2014_ingo_maurer_rare_big_m_table_lamp__wright_auction

Wright