Since founding his studio in 2007, Lee Broom’s Salone del Mobile showcase has become a highlight of the annual furniture fair. Always inventive and ever the showman, his previous installations have involved a fairground carousel of his products, a travelling exhibition in the back of a delivery van and a street of disused shops transformed into a department store.
For 2018, Broom has decided to let his new collection do the talking for him with the launch of seven new stellar-inspired lights. ‘Observatory’ is described by Broom as his ‘most progressive body of work to date’ and is the first of a three-phase launch of new lighting collections for 2018.
The seven designs, which will be presented in a 250 sq m gallery space inside a Grade-II listed building in Milan’s Brera Design District, include four new lighting collections – Eclipse, Orion, Aurora and Tidal.
Orion pendant set by Lee Broom
The pieces, sculptural and spherical in form, experiment with the refraction and reflection of light, each featuring LED lighting systems and bulbs custom-designed and developed over the space of two years by Broom’s London-based team.
The Eclipse lights, which include a single pendant light, chandelier, table lamp, and surface light, are made up of discs of mirror-polished stainless steel and acrylic, while Orion features simple modular tube lights with opposing opaque and solid polished gold spheres that connect to form bespoke constellations of light.
Aurora is a scalable chandelier which projects layers of ethereal rings of light created from linear LED light, and Tidal is a polished chrome and opaque acrylic table lamp formed from two balancing hemispheres.
‘This new collection has been a fascinating journey for me,’ enthuses Broom. ‘I wanted to create a celestial collection of sculptural lighting which is progressive and experimental using the latest LED technology. Lighting is a fundamental part of my ethos as a designer and will always play a leading role in my work.’
In another tradition-busting move that follows the fashion industry, one of Broom’s major inspirations, the designer has made the products in his ‘Observatory’ collection available to purchase immediately in-store and online, ensuring a flying start to the London studio’s second decade.
