There’s no better backdrop to reveal a sculptural, new lighting series than at Milan Design Week. As part of this year’s events, Canadian design studio Lambert & Fils presented Silo Collection; a Brutalist-inspired lighting range.
Montreal practice Lambert & Fils is known for expanding design horizons by exploring new design technologies and materials and investigating the many shapes of light. “We dream in materials, we prototype in-house, and we create the technologies and manufacturing approaches to bring our imagined forms to life,” Lambert & Fils founder Samuel Lambert says. Milan Design Week 2022 marked the European premiere of their most recent lighting collection; Silo, a Brutalist-inspired lighting range that takes architectural design cues, recalling visions of concrete towers, cityscapes, and metallic wind instruments.
We explore Lambert & Fils’ latest lighting series which is set to reach our Australian shores through Australia’s exclusive retailer Living Edge. The silo collection will be available both online and to visit in person at their Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth showrooms.
Produced in partnership with Living Edge, exclusive retailers of Lambert & Fils
Lambert & Fils’ collaborative Caffè Populaire installation at Milan’s Fuorisalone showcases their latest Silo Collection.
A curation of Lambert & Fils’ latest Silo Collection pieces creates a sculptural sight within the Caffè Populaire installation at Milan Design Week.
The Silo 3FH floor lamp in a ‘tumbled aluminium’ finish is playful and theatrical.
Samuel Lambert founded the contemporary lighting atelier Lambert & Fils, in 2010 when he opened a small design shop on Rue Beaubien in Montreal. Growing up in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Samuel spent his childhood observing his ceramicist father at his home studio. Lambert’s legacy came full circle shortly after the birth of his youngest son when he began gathering his original designs under a new concept – Lambert & Fils (Lambert & Sons).
Fast forward 12 years, Lambert & Fils are admired for their collaborative projects with a global lineup of emerging designers and regarded worldwide for their award-winning original lighting, including the modern cult classic Dot, Waldorf and Laurent collections. In Australia, Lambert & Fils’ designs are available exclusively through Living Edge; the foremost design destination for architects, interior designers, design enthusiasts and those who share discerning tastes.
Samuel continues to lead the creative studio as artistic director, applying his fascination with materials and pledge to ‘the handmade craft’ remaining at the very heart of Lambert & Fils today. Taking honour in preserving the bond between design and making, each Lambert & Fils lighting piece is individually handcrafted at their atelier in the heart of Montreal today. “Working by hand empowers our studio to push boundaries. Our Montreal atelier is in a constant state of experimentation – explorations that have powered experiential lighting environments and award-winning collections,” Samuel says. Through its exploration of new design technologies, Lambert & Fils investigates the many shapes of light – meditating on voids, volumes and the importance of matière premiere – materials as a point of origin. Well-versed in creating installations worldwide, Lambert & Fils recently hosted a pop-up café at Milan Design Week’s Fuorisalone.
As a stand-alone piece or featured in a cluster, the Silo Collection of hanging pendants plays with negative space to reflect its surroundings.
“The Silo Collection’s vertical shapes take cues from brutalist architecture, recalling visions of concrete towers, cityscapes, and metallic wind instruments.”
– Lambert & Fils founder Samuel Lambert
Lambert & Fils Silo 3WA
After the successful first edition of the temporary Caffè Populaire, which saw Lambert & Fils and DWA Design Studio present during Milan Design Week 2019, the duo returned for another edition. This time they were joined by New York-based wallpaper studio Superflower, and together the creative trio renewed the experience with Caffè Populaire: an eight-day aperitivo garden.
The setting for 2022 was Alcova’s vacant temple inside the former Ospedale Militare di Baggio and surrounded by gardens. The complex dates back to the early 1930s and consists of a set of pavilions immersed in nature. Seeking the subtle balance between the artificial and the natural, Milan’s renowned DWA Design Studio created an installation in which nature aims to frame human conviviality. Inside the temple’s main room, a central table blooming with wildflowers created a dialogue with the garden outside and Superflower’s floral wall coverings. At the same time, an undulating water sculpture emerged from the flowering table to connect Lambert & Fils’ new lighting collection, Silo.
Lambert & Fils Silo SIL12
Lambert & Fils Silo 2TF
Lambert & Fils Silo SIL4FI
As part of Milan Design Week’s Caffè Populaire exhibition, a central table blooming with wildflowers creates a contrasting dialogue with the Silo Atelier 01 chandelier overhead. Local Italian practice DWA Design Studio collaborated with Lambert & Fils to create this temporary space which features contrasting elements of nature alongside pieces from the Silo Collection.
Caffè Populaire is the first time the sculptural Silo light series was shown on European soil. Not one to shy away from exploring the many shapes of light, Lambert & Fils’ Silo Collection is created using custom aluminium extrusions in a process involving pushing metal through a die. While this process embodies the brutalism of industrial manufacturing, its following treatments bring human craftsmanship back to the forefront of its design and the resulting compilation of the Silo range is both understated and refined. Silo’s cylindrical shapes are both industrial and exquisite in simplicity. Held up by aircraft wires, Silo appears weightless and commanding.
Theatrical, sleek and striking, Silo inhabits many worlds at once, creating a metaphor for duality. Its vertical tubular shapes are inspired by Brutalist architecture, cityscapes and metallic wind instruments. As a stand-alone piece or featured as part of a cluster, the Silo Collection plays with negative space to reflect its surroundings, making it as compelling turned off as it is illuminated.
