Italamp · Made in Italy
Kaleido
Light composed leaf by leaf, for one room only
Kaleido is drawn for the room it hangs in. Handmade leaves of glass are hung one by one on fine cables and lit from above, and the shape, scale and colour of the whole are decided around the space.
The idea
A composition, drawn to the room
Italamp has made lighting in the Veneto since 1975, entirely in Italy, from its base at Cadoneghe near Padua. Kaleido is the most open work in its collection. Instead of a finished fitting it offers a vocabulary: thirteen elements in glass, porcelain and crystal, each made by hand, and a set of ways to hang and light them.
Italamp publishes forty-five compositions, each in up to nine sizes, and describes them as suggestions to stimulate the imagination. A Kaleido can be a slim line over a dining table, a ring above a sitting room or a column of glass falling eight metres through a stairwell. The drawing starts with the ceiling, the height and the way the room is used.
How it is made
Four decisions shape every Kaleido
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01
The element
Thirteen handmade elements, from Pluma at 17cm to Palette, a 60cm stroke of thin glass, and Ori, a leaf of folded porcelain. No two pieces are quite alike, because each is shaped by hand.
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02
The colour
Most elements come in ten glass colours: clear, etched, smoked, teak, dove, amber, topaz, bluino, sage and salmon. They can be used alone or mixed within one composition.
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03
The light
Discreet spotlights in the ceiling shine down through the glass, with a choice of beam and output. Dalia, Ori, Sella and Reva can also carry a micro-LED inside the leaf, so the glass glows from within.
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04
The fixing
Leaves hang straight from a false ceiling, from a plate on a concrete ceiling, or from rails or a fine 6mm steel grid where the ceiling is decorative or glazed. Plates and grids can be painted to disappear.
The elements
Thirteen leaves, each made by hand
What it can become
From a single line to a falling column
Specifying a Kaleido
How a piece comes together
Every Kaleido is specified rather than chosen from a list, so it starts with a conversation. Send us the ceiling height, the size of the space and a plan or photograph if you have one, along with any colours or references you are drawn to.
We work with Italamp on a proposed composition, the elements, the light and the fixing, and come back with a drawing and a price. Each piece is made to order in Italy. Lead times are confirmed with the drawing, and a small number of Sella compositions in standard finishes are on Italamp's quick-shipment programme.
In outline
- Made by
- Italamp, Padua, Italy
- Elements
- Thirteen, in glass, porcelain and crystal
- Glass colours
- Ten, used alone or mixed
- Scale
- From 40cm to more than six metres wide
- Drop
- Cascades of up to eight metres
- Rating
- IP20, for indoor use. CE marked
Light output, colour temperature and dimming are specified for each project. Every Kaleido is priced to its drawing.