Tommaso Cimini

Background

Tommaso Cimini is the designer and founder of Lumina. Lumina describes him as a mechanical engineering expert with ingenuity, an innate capacity to innovate and a deep knowledge of materials. In the mid-1970s he worked in a small workshop in Sedriano, near Milan, retooling its machines to build the lamp that would define his career. In 1980 he set up Lumina in Sedriano.

Signature Style

Cimini's guiding idea was "Lots of light, not much lamp": a conviction that function generates form. His lamps reduce a light to its working parts — an articulated arm, an adjustable diffuser, a visible power unit — and make them the design.

Notable Works

• Daphine table lamp (1976), Lumina's signature product, and its family including Daphine Terra and Daphine Parete
• Elle (1984)
• Daphine Classic and Elle Classic in Lumina's heritage range

Legacy

The Daphine has figured in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Judd Foundation, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Die Neue Sammlung and the Triennale di Milano. Lumina, now led by his son Ettore Cimini, still applies his philosophy to every product bearing its name.