Artist Birthday: Nicolas Roope

Although some people find their shape and the quality of their light unpleasant, and some question their environmental advantage, low-energy use lightbulbs are a necessary innovation. Their presence in our lives, explains the Plumen's designer, "should be seen as an advantage to be celebrated by drawing, sculpting, or scrawling in the air with light. The bulbs should not be viewed as an afterthought but instead as a centerpiece. Then people might begin to buy these bulbs through genuine desire rather than mere moral obligation." Production of the Plumen began in 2011, and the bulbs are sold in Europe and the United States. (Gallery label from MOMA)

Artist birthday for February 26th: Nicolas Roope (born 1972, Singapore/Britain)

Nicolas Roope is a pioneering industrial designer whose outlook is remarkably similar to that of the teachers of the Bauhaus: merging industrial design with contemporary aesthetics.

PLUMEN low-energy light bulb, 2007, manufactured by Hulger (1994-present, London), glass, ABS plastic, wires, and electronic fittings, 30 x 22 x 11 cm Image The Museum of Modern Art, New York, © 2025 Nicolas Roope

Like the best high-tech retooling of traditional designs, the Plumen lightbulb pays homage to history with references to the arching shape of the filaments in early incandescent bulbs while promoting the cause of energy conservation for the future.

Since the latter half of the 1800s, there evolved several major movements in the history of Western (Europe and Americas) design  with specific sets of aesthetic characteristics that were either a reaction to or rejection of the aesthetics that immediately preceded them. Several of these progressive movements contributed ultimately in the elevation of design into the status of fine art. The Arts and Crafts Movement (flourished ca. 1870s–1920) in Europe and America began the evolution to contemporary design, and along with the Viennese Workshops (Wiener Werkstätte) were a reaction to the dehumanization of design through mass-industrialization, emphasizing hand-crafting and ornament influenced from historical art.

At the core of progressive design was the Bauhaus School (1919–1933). Grounded in Arts and Crafts principles of fine craftsmanship, Bauhaus stressed the integration of fine arts aesthetics with industrially produced, simple and functional forms for the masses. The International Style (ca. 1950s to 1970s) evolved from the Bauhaus, espousing the same simplicity and emphasis on function which, like Bauhaus, rejected ornamentation seen in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Postmodern movement (ca. 1977 to 1990s) was a rejection of the lack of individualism and humanism of the International Style. The movement reintroduced ornament, along with color and exaggerated historicist elements. Contemporary design (2000–now) very much reflects the concept of the “world village” with the easy access to electronic and digital data. Designers have liberated themselves from any particular dogma, in favor of opening themselves to influences  from any time period or culture on earth. The spirit of individualism is capably united with contemporary industrial production and has resulted in hybrids of design.

Nicolas Roope was born in Singapore. He received a BA in Fine Arts from Liverpool John Moores University where his emphasis was Conceptual art. One of the major influences on his design work was the painter Giorgio Morandi (1890–1864) who worked in Cubism-derived style of Purism, where still life objects are reduced to their most elementary shapes. Roope admired Morandi's ability to find feeling in unremarkable objects. Roope's approach to design involves shifting reflections about the use of objects, rather than revolutionizing them.

As an artist, Roope looked beyond industry rhetoric in favor of the truths of digital media and design. He has been the founder of numerous influential tech and design companies. He only approached designing products himself after he had already established the product design company Hulger (1994), among many others. His focus one combining product design, digital media and business development has won him many awards.

This image is in the following Davis program: 
Davis Collections, Contemporary Design