Pill Table Lamp by Cesare Casati for Studio D.A. / NAI, 1968

Pillola table lamp, designed by Cesare Casati and Emanuele Ponzio in 1968 and produced by Studio Da for Nai. It shows signs of age consistent with use. Further information/images available upon request. 

Ø 13 cm, height 55 cm

The “Pillola” lamp is not merely a lighting fixture; it is a political and cultural manifesto of an era that looked to the future with irony, utopian ideals, and complete confidence in new plastic materials. Today, it is so significant that it is part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York and the Cooper Hewitt Museum.

At the end of the 1960s, Italian design decided to subvert the idea of the traditional lampshade. Casati and Ponzio took a tiny, everyday, decidedly unpoetic object—a medicinal capsule (a pill)—and enlarged it dramatically, transforming it into a luminous sculpture. It was the aesthetic of Pop Art (in the style of Claes Oldenburg) applied to domestic furnishings.

The strength of the “Pillola” lies in its interactivity and stage presence. Rarely conceived as a standalone piece, it was originally created as a group of 5 lamps (each approximately 55 cm tall) positioned on a freeform base or individually:
It is made of methacrylate (the colored, translucent part) and ABS plastic (the molded white base).
The original set included the classic saturated, psychedelic Space Age colors: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and White.
Each pill has a heavy metal base concealed inside the lower half. This allowed the lamp to be tilted or positioned at various angles on the floor or table, moving organically through the space without falling over.

Finding a complete original set of 5 “Pillola” lamps from the 1960s/70s in perfect condition is every mid-century design collector’s dream.