Jonas Wagell: Between the Christmas Tree and Emil, the Robot

(jiří macek) Even though his trees serve as traffic lights on railway lines for children, they are lamps. Their naïve shapes and colors are reminiscent of a world where bowls fly and glow after sunset. And why not? – Jonas Wagell has already designed them.

The lights and bowls designed by Swedish designer and architect Jonas Wagell, who presented them at Design Week in Stockholm last week, are so rarely simple, yet so unforgettable that one feels like including them among the classical designer pieces from Scandinavia. However, Jonas Wagell is only thirty-five and did not want to have anything to do with design for a long time – after studying economics in school, he worked as a project manager. Fortunately, a love of design and architecture eventually won out in his case.

Wagell graduated from Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm in 2007. Even though his portfolio only includes several projects so far, his playfully simple style has earned him a name in the world of design. His Odd collection of bowls and lights evokes the 1960s, Lego construction toys, spools, color yo-yos, and many other things. This may be the reason why they are so charming. One feels like constructing an ideal world from them. The Symbio lamps, designed along the lines of a naïve techno romance, are a salute to simplicity. The bulbs Wangell works with create their cores like a contemporary candle. The resulting burner has two branches with their own light sources of disarming colors and sizes. Try to imagine them in a specific situation: Take the lamp and enter a room where your girlfriend is. Turn on the light. So does she. Is it not a beautiful scene? It is a pity that these lamps cannot be interconnected with a music box…

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