Elio Martinello for Martinelli Luce.

ELIO MARTINELLI (Lucca 1922-2004) for Martinelli Luce.
Table lamp "Mushroom", 70s.
Aluminum and methacrylate.
Measurements: 50 x 50 x 50 cm.
Table lamp model "Mushroom", conceived by the designer Elio Martinelli and produced by the Italian firm Martinelli Luce during the 1970s. This iconic piece is a benchmark of mid-20th century Italian design, and is fully inscribed within the aesthetic language known as Space Age, which sought to capture the fascination with the future, technology and organic forms inspired by the space age.
The lamp is distinguished by its enveloping, biomorphic profile, which refers to the silhouette of a mushroom, from which it takes its name.
Trained by the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence as a set designer, Elio Martinelli began to take his first steps in the field of lighting in the business of his father Plinio. After a few years and after several experiences in the scenography sector, he decides to start his own business focusing initially on interior design and set-up of stores, restaurants, hotels and pubs. Due to the need to finish his plans, he drew and made the lighting fixtures on his own. During the 50's, Elio accentuates his simple and rigorous inspiration giving a strong impulse to his company that becomes a point of reference for Italian design in the geometry of lighting and nature considered from its many forms. A crescendo of intuitions and experimentations using new materials such as methacrylate. From these first tests were born very different lamps such as Foglia, Bolle, Cobra or Biconica.
Elio Martinelli was an inexhaustible source of ideas and innovation whose design objects such as Cobra, Bolla, Semisfera and many others are still examples of this original design impulse.