Awesome Lighting

Freshome’s 40 Most Creative Lamps post is pure linkbait, but we’ll bite: from Mario Bros. mushrooms and grenade lamps, we’ll never look at lighting the same. Thanks, Chris!

It’s too bad that Eric Pautz’s Rubik’s Lamp is just a concept; the original Cube is capable of 43 quintillion combos, potentially making this lamp the ultimate in geek decor.

Table lamps rarely inspire awe, but Ettore Cimini’s Ra is downright sexy; a pair of flexible steel/polymer “snakes” with fiber optic cables relay light from a 100W bulb at its base.

The venerable Hourglass goes high tech with this LED Hourglass Lantern by Young Bok Kim; light “flows” from one end to the other by varying brightness based on a built-in timer.

Your girl is probably not gonna talk to you for a few days, but this kitschy Alien Abduction Lamp Concept is geek decor at its finest; you can even choose from bovine and human abductees.

These Dog Bookstands by Charles Kalpakian put the funk in shelving; we’re honestly not sure what to make of them, other than that we’d snap up a few of these puppies if they’re ever made.

Those of us with power plugs in short supply will find Sebastian Herkner’s nan16/plug lamp to be useful; each pendant lamp features a socket smack in the middle of the light.

Overly complex but totally awesome looking, Stimuli 3.0 is a concept lamp by Chris Natt. It adjusts its brightness based on ambient lightning, using “petals” and a three-axis gearbox.

The first few times we saw the Nemo LED Chain Lamp we classified it as a concept, it looked so good. Powered by four LEDs, the lamp is 2.75″ retracted but extends up to 22″ in height.