ask pieke bergmans a simple question and you’ll get anything but a simple answer.

To the Dutch designer, a light bulb is not a light bulb. When a light bulb, or indeed any simple object, is placed under her personal design imperative, “Design Virus,” it becomes something else altogether. “A light bulb,” she says, “is a light bulb that has gone way out of line. Infected by the dreaded Design Virus, these bulbs have taken on all kinds of forms and sizes you wouldn’t expect from such well behaving and reliable little products.”

The same goes for everything else she designs from tables and cabinets to dinnerware and vases. Still, the Light Bulb series remains her most eye-catching work, garnering plenty of oohs and ahhs at Art Basel this year. The bulbs themselves are made of crystal, but Bergmans has also experimented with glass blowing to create some pieces that look particularly infected by the virus.

designer: pieke bergmans


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