Designed by as an outdoor light for the 1952 Unité d'habitation de Marseille, the Corbusier project that launched a thousand Brutalist buildings, the Borne Béton lamp is making a comeback.
The lamp also inspired Kanye West, who cited the cement light fixture as a muse for the 2013 Yeezus album, saying "this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration."
Now you too can experience the creative illumination of the Borne Béton (though you probably won't have to pay $110,000 for it like Kanye did).
Recreated as a smaller tabletop lamp by Italian lighting firm Nemo, a new line of the solid-yet-curvy fixture was recently unveiled at Milan design week. A larger full-sized version is also available for outdoor use. The new lamps have LED light sources, but are otherwise faithful to Corbusier's original design.
"It is an incredible lamp, summarizing all Le Corbusier's ideals regarding lighting: a pure yet functional volume, whose shape is plastic but efficient thanks to its massive concrete reflector shape," Nemo's head of design Valentina Folli told Dezeen.
Le Corbusier is widely acknowledged to be one of the founding fathers of modern architecture, and his buildings and design philosophy have continued to influence architects and artists, from Kanye to Karl Lagerfeld.
Nemo reissues cement lamp designed by Le Corbusier [Dezeen]
Kanye West Further Explains His $110,000 Le Corbusier Lamp [Curbed]
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