”King Sun ” Lamp by Gae Aulenti - Italy - circa 1967 metal base and acrylic fins Dim : H 72 DIA 70 CM

”King Sun ” Lamp by Gae Aulenti – Italy – circa 1967
metal base and acrylic fins
Dim : H 72 DIA 70 CM

Gae Aulenti (December 4, 1927 – October 31, 2012) was an Italian architect, lighting and interior designer, and industrial designer. She was well known for several large-scale museum projects, including Musée d’Orsay in Paris (1980–86), the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Palazzo Grassi in Venice (1985–86), and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2000–2003). Gae was one of the few women designing in the postwar period in Italy, and created many elegant pieces.

Aulenti trained as an architect in Milan, but over the course of her career also designed furniture, exhibitions, lighting and scenography. After graduating, she joined the staff of design magazine Casabella as an art director and also taught architecture in Milan and Venice.

From the 1960s onwards she designed a number of pieces for Italian furniture brands including La Rinascente, Zanotta and FontanaArte.

Aulenti’s designs for the Musée d’Orsay in the 1980s lead to many other gallery commissions, including a space for the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the restoration of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.