'New Museum' Building Lamp

The mantra from Bauhaus designers is “Form follows function.” In this case, function follows form. The form is the New Museum in the Bowery area of Manhattan. The function is a lamp. Building Collector reader Paul C. sent me this tip from a recent NY Times article. New Museum was designed by the Tokyo architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, who are jointly known as Sanaa. The seven-story, structure located at 235 Bowery in NYC opened in December of 2007. With a dramatic design, the New Museum building is a home for contemporary art and an incubator for new ideas. The designers have described the building as their response to the history and powerful personalities of both the New Museum and its storied site. “The Bowery was very gritty when we first visited it,” they have said. “We were a bit shocked, but we were also impressed that a contemporary art museum wanted to be there.” The architecture has been getting mixed reviews. The building lamp has been called “Functional architecture for our night table.” It is not cheap, its price is about $1200 and created by Sherwood Forlee who said, “As a side project, I decided to make a scaled-down version that actually glowed at night. The result was a nice-looking (thanks to SANAA) table lamp. With luck, I'll be able to produce enough of these for those light-loving but disappointed fans of the New Museum."