t.e. 223

bulb bullée

For the 2020 collection, Thomas Eyck commissioned Christien Meindertsma for a new project.

Designing a lamp that captures the magic of blowing a glass bell has long been on Christien's wish list. Or as she herself says: “I wanted to design a lamp where you can preserve that first magical moment when the air from the lungs of the glassblower forms a bubble of glass to the blowpipe”.
To capture this magic, Christien developed a lamp that only consists of the parts needed to blow the glass: a blowpipe, a wooden mold and glass. The appearance of the lamp is the result of these three elements.

bulb bullee by christien meindertsma for thomas eyck from Thomas Eyck on Vimeo.

With master glassblower Gert Bullée of the National Glass Museum Leerdam, a bell is blown on a copper blowpipe. Copper and glass have the same shrinkage, so during cooling the glass remains firmly attached to the blowpipe. The wooden mold in which the bell is blown then serves as the base for the lamp.
A specially made lighting source, with a lifespan of 50.000 hours, is then ingeniously inserted into the blowpipe and the technical installation is then hidden in the wooden mold.
For good stability, the base of the table and floor lamp is weighted with wrapped recycled lead, from a power cable that was located at the bottom of the North Sea.

The bulb bullée collection consists of three models: a wall-, table- and floor lamp, all in a numbered edition of 100. The wooden mold is made of black stained elm wood. In addition to this version, there is a numbered edition of 10 with a natural pear-wooden mold. The pear tree used for these molds grew close to Christien's studio and the  National Glassmuseum Leerdam, making it a very local production.

The lamps are produced together with Roxal BV, Kuperus & Gardenier, National Glass Museum Leerdam and LedLabel 's-Hertogenbosch.

For more information about prices, size and delivery time please click on the images below.