Lighting design is always pushing the boundaries to explore new ways and innovative ideas to bring light into our homes. One of the most controversial lamps to appear on the lighting scene in recent times is that of designer Philppe Starck’s gun lamp.

He is not the first designer to use contentious images to express himself and will not be the last either. First sight of these lamps provokes shock – with all that guns have come to stand for: violence, war and suffering, and disgust at having so powerful a symbol turned into a meek and mild domestic element. The pure gold plating on these gun lamps is just as powerful a symbol of greed and lust that seem to drive life to ever more irresponsible boundaries.

There is an element of humour too at seeing a deadly weapon reduced to impotence and serving merely as a device to light up a room and perhaps that was Phillippe Starck’s intention all along when he devised the idea of a gun lamp.

The body of the Beretta hand gun lamp is produced from die cast aluminium with an injection moulded polymer overprint which is then finished with an eighteen carat gold leaf. On the top of the base is engraved the words - Happiness is a hot gun....

The shade is a matte black plasticized paper diffuser with printed inside in gold silk screen printing the signature Starck cross decoration. It accommodates a halogen bulb and operates with a dimmer cord. The gun lamps collection was first introduced as a prototype in the spring of 2005 at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. The prototype lamps were gold-leafed and signed by Starck and the gold-plated lamp is the production version that is currently distributed by the world’s leading lighting emporia.

The collection includes the Beretta pistol hand gun lamp, the Kalashnikov AK47 table lamp which brings one of the weapons that has caused so much death and destruction among underdeveloped nations of the third world right into our living rooms and then the M16 Rifle floor lamp. These are all die cast from actual guns with some of the details removed. This is the latest provocation by a great designer, who knows all too well that even adults need to dispel their fears and that they need to play war to evoke peace. He knows our weak points inside and out and therefore our need of menacing and universal symbols to be seen to be rendered harmless.

Twenty percent of the gross sales from the Guns Collection will be donated to the Freres des Hommes Europe Association, an organization that works in developing the growth of local communities & their social structure in underdeveloped countries of the world.