Calle floor lamp

Sergio Moscheni

Italian architect and designer Sergio Moscheni developed, from the late 1960s onward, a practice encompassing architecture, furniture, and above all lighting design. A lecturer at the Politecnico di Milano and head of his own studio, he approached the lamp not as a mere decorative object, but as a spatial structure in which technique, light, and construction become inseparable.
His work for Selenova particularly exemplifies this approach. Designed around 1970, the Calle floor lamp consists of long vertical metal rods gathered at the base, each carrying a light source. Depending on the version, the number of rods varies, giving the ensemble the appearance of an abstract bouquet or a vegetal architecture. The metal elements act both as structure and electrical conductors, reducing the lamp to a few essential components: line, energy, and light.
Without a traditional lampshade, Calle places its light sources directly within space. The repetition and slenderness of its rods give it a strong sculptural and graphic presence, while its modular conception makes it closer to an open system than to a fixed form.
With other designs such as Giraffa, Moscheni continued this exploration of mobility and the organization of light. Calle remains one of the most radical expressions of his work and fully embodies the experimental spirit of Italian design in the 1970s.