Pistillo and the geometry of a flower

You see Pistillo before it even lights up. It’s a radial burst of aluminium spotlights opening out from a central disc, like the fertile part of a flower, which is where the name comes from. On the wall, before being a light source, it’s an object to look at.

The geometry is elementary: a circle, arms, points of light. It’s a choice Marco Pagnoncelli carries through the whole collection, from the single module to the most extended. The family scales from 1 to 9 spotlights – Pistillo 1, 3, 6, 9 – keeping the same formal language across four sizes.

The body is aluminium. The spotlight housings are turned from solid, a process you can read in the cleanliness of the volumes and the precision of the join with the central disc. The reflectors are folded aluminium sheet, finished in butter white: a white pushed slightly towards warm, which returns the light at a more comfortable temperature than standard white. The colour combinations mostly play on two tones: butter white paired with brushed bronze, caramel chocolate or aluminium; or gold powder on black, bronze, butter white. And the wall enters the composition.

In use, the defining feature of this luminous object is the adjustment: each spotlight is mounted on a rotating disc that lets you direct the light upwards, downwards, or split it. A few points to the ceiling for indirect light, others towards the floor or the work surface for direct light. Same lamp, same wall, different atmospheres depending on how you turn the discs.

The smallest version, Pistillo 1, the wall lamp, has a double adjustment: the single spotlight is also mounted on a 350° swivel arm, which lets you extend the light beyond the body of the lamp. It’s designed to sit by the bedside, with a reading light that doesn’t take up the surface, and that you can aim precisely without moving the book.

Pistillo is a closed, recognisable form that sits in different rooms without imposing itself. Pagnoncelli talks about it like a painting: something that furnishes the wall even when off. “With one difference,” he says. “A painting you can’t switch on. Pistillo you can.”