The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum
of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 296
Castiglioni designed more than sixty lamps and a host of other
objects, working from 1945 until 1968 with his brother Pier
Giacomo and then on his own. One of their best-known lamp
designs, Arco, came about through the challenge of a practical
problem: how to provide a ceiling lamp that would not require
drilling a hole in the ceiling. Castiglioni's motto, "design
demands observation," proved accurate, for it was a street lamp
that gave the brothers the inspiration for this fixture. Street
lamps, affixed to the ground, have a shape that enables them to
project their light beams several feet away from their bases. In
this domestic adaptation, the Castiglionis were able to
illuminate objects eight feet away from the lamp's base—far
enough to light the middle of a dining table—by inserting a
steel arch into a heavy Carrara marble pedestal. They studied
the span of the arch to be sure tha