Metal and Stone Lamp (Conical)

The Metal & Stone lamp, first seen at Geoffrey Bawa’s home in Colombo, was created for a specific purpose – to highlight a beautiful metal artefact gifted to him by from a dear friend.

For Bawa, who wanted to honour both the object and what it stood for, it was not enough to simply set it on a table. His innate instinct was to elevate cherished objects and animate spaces with them. With that in mind, Bawa picked up a granite block he found lying around, placed the artefact on it, and thought: well, this deserves light. That impulse led to the addition of a base for the rock, a slender rod behind it, and mounted on that rod, a cone that would gently direct the light downwards onto the sculpture. This early version of the lamp was the result of a collaboration between Bawa and Dunstan, a metalworker from Beruwela. It was object theatre at its enchanting, evocative best.

Subsequently, versions of the lamp was used in the Kandalama Hotel's Kanchana Lounge.

Phantom Hands’ re-edition of this lamp honours the Sri Lankan master’s understanding that the lamp is an open-ended invitation to engage—to place something you love in the spotlight, and in doing so, turn a static object into a personal dialogue.

In keeping with contemporary needs, the solid granite is replaced with a lightweight composite stone, developed as a result of experiments with stone and concrete aggregates by the Phantom Hands R&D team. The original galvanised iron metal components with machined stainless steel and aluminium. The lamp is available is a clear natural finish or a black powder coated finish.