Leimu, meaning ‘flame’ in Finnish is the creation of Norwegian-born, UK-trained designer Magnus Pettersen who set up his studio in 2010 creating his first products in 2011.
Whizz forward to 2013 and Finnish glass company Iittala snapped up this designer to create an electrical light. Leimu is a table lamp which has a glass lampshade which sits on a concrete base with tinted glass in a copper colour to produce a warm, atmospheric light and the concrete is made slightly darker to make it seem softer.
The design is inspired by architecture, and wanting to bring a crude and cold material like concrete into an interior setting. The fragile glass and tough concrete is an unnatural pair, but it’s the contrast of the two materials which makes the design work.
Contrast fascinates Pettersen, whose studio is based in London. His style is referred to as “industrial luxury” because opposites are a recurring feature in his work. He looks at how well different materials or colours merge in an interesting and functional way without prejudice.
“Concrete has a raw and cold feel to it. The union of glass and concrete is well known in architecture, but it isn’t necessarily always beautiful. I wanted to smoothly combine opposites in a lamp and show that fierce and sensitive, cold and warm can work well together.
“Glass is a great material, but it is also very challenging because it is alive and it makes accurate dimensioning very difficult. However, through the know-how of and good communication with Iittala’s glass factory, we were able to combine concrete and glass into an elegant whole.”
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