Wandering around the aethernet today, I stumbled across this interesting observation: ...the late Victorians had a different attitude towards light bulbs than we do today. To them an exposed light bulb looked stylish and modern, to us it's a symbol of decrepitude and poorness. We hide light bulbs behind shades and diffusers. The Victorians liked to show them off.
The blogger, Deadprogrammer, goes on to point out the Edison bulb (pictured to the right) and a simple unadorned fixture, both from Rejuvenation, that would be appropriate for showing it off. (I can personally vouch for Rejuvenation -- I have ordered lighting fixtures from them and been extremely pleased with both the quality and stylishness of their products.)
One of Rejuvenation's creative customers put a series of these together in a way that combines the modern and the traditional -- a tension that is at the heart of steampunk.
Wonderful post. Edison bulbs are indeed beautiful. I personally love carbon arc lights. They give off an eerie, shifting, pearlescent glow. There are lots of gorgeous examples of carbon arc street lamps and old edison bulbs (including one powered by handcrank) at the Electrotechnical Museum in Budapest. You can see my pictures from the museum on flickr.
ReplyDeleteWe also wrote about that most Steampunk of inventions, Tesla's Egg of Columbus over at Curious Expeditions.