Motoko Ishii, for Staff

MOTOKO ISHII (Japan, 1938), for Staff
Wall sconce, ca. 1970s.
Polished metal and glass.
Measurements: 20 x 25 cm.

Wall lamp designed by Motoko Ishii for Staff, in the 1970s. Ishii was inspired on this occasion by the space age. The glass balls that protect the lamp make it optically larger. The transparent volume of the globe lamp lends lightness to the design.

Motoko Ishii is a Japanese lighting designer. From 1965 to 1967 she worked in lighting design studios in Finland and Germany. Returning to Japan in 1968, she established the Ishii Motoko Design Office. One of her main projects was the lighting design for Expo ‘75 in Okinawa. From the 1980s onwards, she did the designs for a number of major projects. Three major events for which he was responsible for lighting were Expo ‘85 in Tsukuba, the Yokohama Lighting Festival and Japan Flora 2000. He also designed lighting for the cities of Osaka, Hakodate, Himeji and Kurashiki, and for the gassh?-zukuri village of Shirakawa. His 1989 redesign of the Tokyo Tower lighting attracted international attention. He won the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America award for the Light Fantasy Electricity Pavilion at the International Garden and Vegetation Exposition (Osaka, 1990) and again for the Rainbow Bridge (1994). In 2009, he designed the lighting for the Elisabeth Bridge in Budapest, Hungary.