The light system was was designed in 1972 by Danish designer Holger Strøm, who was then working at the Kilkenny Design Workshops, Ireland.
He was originally asked to create a modular construction for a cylindrical and a spherical lamp, both to appear to be the same size, to be used in a Christmas display.
“I constructed them from triangular modules, which I glued together, and by using an equal number of modules for the sphere and the cylinder, they did actually appear to be the same size. It was just a Christmas decoration, but I couldn’t completely forget the idea. I wanted to make it with a mechanical assembly system, and with identical modules.
“I used a rhomboid shape because, of the classic geometric shapes, it’s one that can give a most round form. I also realised that by giving the module a curl on each corner I could hook them together, but the result was a bit loose and floppy. So I lengthened the top and bottom of the rhombus, that gave them tension when they were hooked together, and it was that tension I needed for the lamp to hold together.”
