The silence of the lamps

Pardon the bad pun but if you keep reading it'll make sense.

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post about an Italian furniture studio I'd found on Twitter called CLAB4design. CLAB's still plugging away in Breschia and my now-friend Umberto Dattola's still at the helm and he's still creating beautiful work.

Umberto and I have kept in touch over the years and recently, he sent me some photos of his new collection of floor lamps.

In Italian, they're called Lampada Silente. That's Silent Lamp in English. In any language, they're simple, sculptural and absolutely beautiful.

He carves each of these lamps by himself, by hand.

The shades are made from thin sheets of poplar.

And the bases are made from linden.

The lamps are finished with an oil finish and the wood's left its natural color.

Each lamp is 190cm tall and can hold a standard lightbulb.

Silence Lamps are readily available in the EU and you can find out more information about EU sales on Umberto's website. Unfortunately, North Americans, Australians and the rest of the world are out of luck since CLAB4design doesn't have a distributor outside of the EU.

That wouldn't take much to remedy however. If you're interested in carrying the Silence Lamp or any of Umberto's other offerings, let me know and I'll put you in touch with him.

Old techniques, new furniture

My friend Patrick Shilling is a master woodworker in Bethnal Green, London. Over the years he's carved out a niche for himself as a creator of exquisite, one of a kind interiors. Here are some examples of his work.

Never one to sit still, Patricks's been turning his hand to fine furniture and over the years has perfected a technique that uses an adze and a saw on English oak. The texture carved onto these pieces is done entirely by hand and that's something that's utterly unique in the world.

The finishes he's developed for this line mimic the appearance of stone, leather and charred timber but the attention to detail he employs never lets you lose sight of the fact that his pieces are made entirely of oak.

His passion for and love of his craft shine through this entire collection and I invite you to take a look through the gallery on his website. Whether it's a wardrobe, a table, a room divider, a larder or any of the pieces in this collection, all of it's breathtaking.

If you're interested in Patrick's work, you can contact him through his website. He's also looking for dealers in the UK, the EU, The US and anywhere else in the world you might be. So if furniture's your thing, drop him a line.

It's an easy cliche to fall back on the idea that no one makes high quality furniture by hand anymore and people like Patrick Shilling are living proof that the cliche's simply not true.