Bilberry Lamp

Really feeling this reintroduced Alvar Aalto lampshade design for Artek - the Bilberry A338 lamp. Maybe it's because I like Biberries - my mum makes a great wild Bilberry pie made from Bilberries she finds on the Yorkshire hills.


Bilberries are found in damp, acidic soils throughout the temperate and subarctic regions of the world. They are closely related to North American wild and cultivated blueberries and huckleberries. They also known as European blueberry, blaeberry, whortleberry, whinberry (or winberry), myrtle blueberry, fraughan, and probably other names regionally. They were also called black-hearts in 19th century southern England, according to Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel, The Return of the Native. Billberries are also claimed to enhance vision and help protect against cataracts.


The small, round, white painted steel, light fitting was originally known as Juolukka (a kind of whortleberry). Originally there were two slightly different versions of it - one (like above) in which the opening for the light was cut asymmetrically in the side of the spherical shade and another in which the opening was cut so the light shines directly downwards. It appears Artek have chose wisely to just reintroduce the very contemporary asymmetrically cut version.


The lamp was first designed by Aalto for use in the living room of the Maison Louis Carré - a private house Aalto designed in Bazoches-sur-Guyonnes (about 40 kilometres to the southwest of Paris) between 1956-1959 for prominent French art dealer Louis Carré (the agent for Leger and Picasso). The house is considered to be one of the most important private houses designed by Aalto.




The house is now a museum and open to the public - see more of it here