For German designer Konstantin Grcic, the technical and poetic sides of lighting design are inextricably intertwined. So when working to recreate the glow of the moon for Nocturne, his latest creation for Flos, he knew exactly how to approach it. ‘The reference to the moon is not a stylistic idea, it’s more about a certain type of light: present but not harsh, both directional and ambient at the same time,’ he explains.
The principles guiding the design were clear to Grcic, and included ‘focused light, diffuse light, and the additional glow of the glass body itself.’ The result is a lighting object featuring an extruded aluminium stem and blown borosilicate glass shade (a cone or a dome) casting both a high-performance focused light and creating an ethereal atmosphere. Although Grcic stresses that the idea of Nocturne didn’t start as a system, it quickly developed into a family of designs that includes a floor lamp defined by a vertical track supporting one or more diffusers, as well as suspension wall-mounted versions.
The new family of lighting designs follows Grcic’s 2019 Noctambule collection, and it’s the latest in a series of pieces created for the designer during his 27-year collaboration with the Italian lighting company.
‘I started working with Flos in 1999 with the Mayday lamp, which is still in production today: It’s a very straightforward object, built around a standard bulb,’ observes Grcic. ‘Since then, the collaboration has evolved quite a lot, mainly because of the shift to LED technology. With Mayday, the light source was given. With more recent projects like OK or Noctambule, we design the light source itself first – the engine – and then develop the lamp around it. So over time, the work has become more integrated and more technical, but the aim is still the same: to make useful, well-resolved lighting.’
