Alumina Ð A Story of Form and Light
Released in November 2020, the Alumina Lamp represented Tala’s the first exploration into portable and modular lighting solutions. Made from aluminium in five distinct colours, Alumina was a culmination of years of research and development.
Borne out of a conversation around function and colour, we wanted to create an adaptable and accessible light for modern, urban living, but we needed to find the right foundations for intuitive, day-to-day use.
We focussed on form and materials, from which the pragmatism of the Bauhaus style immediately came to mind.
Taking inspiration from architecture, we were drawn to the impressive cluster of 1930’s Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv called ‘The White City’, as depicted by Yigal Gawze in his book, Form and Light: From Bauhaus to Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv was undergoing rapid development in the 1930’s. Many of the European designers who actualised the modernist movement were fleeing the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, and settled in the city. These architects and designers were influenced by the work of Erich Mendelsohn, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus school of art and design, which is clearly evident in the final design of ‘The White City’.
When studying their work, we particularly liked the clever, multi-functional and stripped-back aesthetic of the buildings. Applying the theory and concepts of Bauhaus, our design team created Alumina as a way of returning to simple, purposeful forms.
Much like the cluster of buildings in Tel Aviv, the Alumina series is a play on form and light, only this time the protagonist is the mouth-blown glass LED bulb. The smooth dimming range delivers warm tones, right the way through to a brighter, more focused hue, accentuating the contours of the lamp base.
Constructed from lightweight aluminium, the body of the lamp is ideal for creating a balanced form in both the table and wall-mounted modes. We settled on aluminium as the core material due to its excellent recyclable potential, while it is also one of Earth’s most abundant metals. The rotary dimmer on the face plate is a nod to the raw metal.
Alumina is a celebration of simple, honest forms, designed to enhance the user’s experience in the home.
We hope we have done justice to the pioneering designers of the remarkable buildings in Tel Aviv.
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