Milan is a city that understands good lighting. For proof, just stroll past the Duomo post-sunset, when the marble cathedral’s crown of spires is illuminated by a series of strategically placed spotlights. Or head to Bar Basso after dark, when the beloved watering hole’s red neon signage glows as bright as a Negroni Sbagliato.

But nowhere is Milan’s role as a global lighting capital more evident than at the city’s Fiera Milano exhibition centre during Euroluce — a biennial
Refreshingly, Euroluce 2023 moved away from boxy, fully enclosed stands to embrace more open displays that encouraged easier exploration. Sure enough, browsing the booths felt less like walking through a convention centre and more like walking down a city street. The result effectively brought the buzz of Milan indoors — generating a scene that, at least temporarily, stole some of the glow away from the Duomo or Bar Basso.
Here is our tour of the standouts from Euroluce 2023.

What Was the Scene? Looking to draw attention to the fact that a light is as much a work of art as it is a product, Euroluce’s organizers staged a series of special attractions that skewed more cultural than commercial.


What Stood Out? Curated by furniture stylist and set designer

What Was the Scene? The theme at


What Stood Out?
- Array by Umut Yamac runs orange or white threads between two suspended discs to create transparent shades that look especially striking when layered in clusters.
- Knit by Meike Harde wraps a glowing sphere in a knitted lycra sleeve. It’s available as both a hanging and floor lamp.
- Circus by Antoni Arola is a track system with spotlights that can be pointed at accompanying ceiling-mounted reflector shades to introduce fun, atmospheric shadows.

What Was the Scene?




What Stood Out?
- Bilboquet, a charming table lamp by Philippe Malouin modelled after the French cup-and-ball game, allows a cylinder to be placed on a magnetic chrome sphere at any angle — or even lifted off entirely.
- Black Flag by Konstantin Grcic is an extendable light that can be pulled out 3.5 metres from its wall frame. A Pro version allows each of the bar’s light sources to be dimmed separately and directed upwards or down.
- Céramique, a table lamp by Ronan Bouroullec, features a ceramic cap that can be tilted along its ceramic shade to provide lighting at various angles.
- Emi by Erwan Bouroullec integrates three light modules inside of a rounded aluminum prism. It’s launching as a ceiling, floor or table lamp, as well as a hanging pendant.

What Was the Scene? Booth designer Mario Cucinella arranged


What Stood Out?
- Dreispitz by Herzog & de Meuron affixes a trio of glowing tubes to a prismatic core. It’s available as a vertical pendant, horizontal suspension light, ceiling or wall fixture, or floor lamp.
- Trilix, a family of indoor and outdoor lamps by Mario Cucinella, features a disc-shaped ring light planted atop a steel frame that can double as a freestanding trellis for growing ivy.
- Vine Light chandeliers expand BIG’s family of ring-shaped lighting to include new groupings of seven or 11 components.

What Was the Scene? After showcasing designer Rodolfo Dordoni’s early experiments with historic Italian ceramics at its showroom last year,


- Chapeau by Rodolfo Dordoni mimics the shapes of traditional table lamps, but swaps out a fabric lampshade for diffusers in painted steel, blown glass or bone china.
- Fregio by Andrea Anastasio sandwiches two floral-patterend ceramic bas reliefs around a metallic bar.
- Hoba by Ludovica and Roberto Palomba is a blown-glass ode to “anti-geometry” featuring oblong pendants with crater-like indents.

What Was the Scene? Never one to shy away from theatricality,


What Stood Out?
- Puff revives the disco ball, using diamond-shaped metal panels to form a charmingly bloated polyhedral pendant.
- Portables scale Tom Dixon’s Melt, Ball and Stone shades down to miniature proportions to create a new range of rechargeable table lamps.

What Was the Scene? One of the booths most likely to draw you in from afar, Ingo Maurer’s display was an explosion of light and colour. The manufacturer showcased its newest luminaires in a series of boxes that were stacked together like units in an apartment tower. Wire cables ran from side to side like power lines, decorated with colourful paper sheets that added to the booth’s dynamic sense of spectacle.


What Stood Out?
- Signature by Team Ingo Maurer leans into the chaos of cable management with a disorderly tangle of wires that calls to mind a carefree doodle. Each cable terminates in an understated black cone shade.
- Moodmoon Framed by Sebastian Hepting shines light through Japanese paper stretched onto an aluminum frame.
- Pic-a-stic is sold as a kit with 50 coloured wooden rods that can be configured as desired around a flexible black rubber ring. Based on a design by Andreas Walther, it’s inspired by the game Mikado.

What Was the Scene? Even when it was packed full of people, Michael Anastassiades’s stand somehow managed to feel like a meditative yoga retreat. Credit goes to the focused wood-framed displays, which formed quiet niches to give each light plenty of breathing room.


What Stood Out?
- Blue Skies angles a bamboo-framed Tosa-Shi paper shade to reflect the glow emanating from the table lamp’s cylindrical base.
- Peaks strings together a series of power-coated aluminum cones that can be arranged facing upwards or down for a range of different lighting effects.

What Was the Scene? The theme of Lasvit’s stand was “It All Comes from Above.” Appropriately, the display was anchored by a cloud-like glass sculpture by


What Stood Out?
- Miles by Yabu Pushelberg encases a frosted trumpet-like form inside a clear glass tube. Elements can be joined together to form table lamps, floor lamps or chandeliers.
- Symbiosa by Studio Llev features mushroom cap-like shades with a distinctive organic texture created by blowing glass into forms made of mycelium.

What Was the Scene? Structural steel framing formed a mix of open and enclosed areas, with intimate nooks helping to highlight the sparse simplicity of


What Stood Out?
- Vis à Vis by Michele Groppi is a fully transparent portable lamp with a disc-like shade that resembles a pool of water suspended in mid-air.
- Utopia by Davide Groppi is a clear bar of light — pure and simple.

What Was the Scene?


What Stood Out?
- Aftereight by Francesco Librizzi and Arian Brajkovic is a series of tubular steel pendants with glass shades.
- Thalea by Paolo Rizzatto and Francesco Librizzi strings together aluminium and glass elements to create jewellery-like compositions.
- Cameo by Claesson Koivisto Rune is a portable glass-blown table lamp.


- Vector by Lukas Peet borrows from the rugged proportions of brutalism, slotting together sheets of weathered steel, black steel, or polished stainless steel to create a rough-meets-refined presence.

- Liuu by Vantot is a sculptural system of electrified metal cables, counter-weights and lightweight luminous heads that made for an ingenious showcase of industrial design.

- Totem features four blown glass shade options, and can be customized to direct light both up and down.

- Baggy by Paola Navone recreates the look of a crumpled paper tube using satin polycarbonate, supported (or grouped, in the case of the floor lamp bundles) by a textile rope.
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