Since 2019, Uwoodi.pl has focused on one idea: designing and making lamps from solid wood. Founder Maciej Gliński discusses which timber suits lighting, why some customers spend 10 years choosing a lamp and how light can take the place of a painting.
What kind of wood can you use to make a lamp?
Essentially any kind, with the right treatment. It all depends on the form we want to achieve. We mainly work with ash because it meets many of our technical requirements, and it is beautiful and visually unpredictable compared with oak, for example.
How do you design a lamp so that form and function do not compete?
We don’t have to compromise very often because, since 2019, we have done just one thing: make lamps from solid wood. No side projects, just complete focus on one material and one craft. Wood is our raw material, but craftsmanship determines whether a lamp succeeds. We use different techniques to shape the wood and don’t set ourselves limits.
If the form we have in mind means bending the material in a way that seems impossible, that is our part of the job: making solid wood take the shape we have imagined. Good design holds it all together. We try to give our lamps a sense of harmony and a kind of minimalism: no unnecessary additions, just a clear form rooted in nature.
Has the way customers and architects approach lighting changed in recent years? Is a lamp no longer something chosen at the end?
The order varies. One thing I do know is that plenty of people choose their lighting very carefully. They are looking for something special. Some look for a very long time. We have at least a few customers who lived with a temporary solution, a bulb on a cable, for 10 years after renovating or finishing their house because they couldn’t find anything they liked. Then they found us.
We also have quite a few customers who had never considered a wooden lamp until they saw ours at a fair and discovered how the appeal of wood combines with the magic of light. In a copy-and-paste culture, we look for something that sets us apart, something that expresses our individuality. Something that tells us and our guests as soon as we walk in: look, I’m in charge here, this is my kingdom.
Are there interiors where your lamp has become the centre of the composition?
Of course. With the Cloud Gigant lamp, it is almost inevitable. During the day, its size and form draw attention. In the evening, when light passes through it, it reveals another side. A kind of theatre of light begins, and there is no longer any doubt about what sets the tone in the room. You only have to look at the photographs our customers send us.
People often argue that one bulb cannot light a room sufficiently. How do you respond?
That is an interesting objection on several levels. First, you can rarely walk into a lighting factory or shop and say: this doesn’t work for me, change it. With us, you can, because we create lamps with their future owners. If one bulb isn’t enough for someone, we fit six. If we can do something, we do it. I always tell customers that they will look at this lamp every day, so they have to like it.
Finally, what would you say to someone looking at an empty wall and deciding between a painting and one of your lamps?
Leave the wall empty. Our lamp will paint a picture on it for them.
Decorative lighting can shape a room’s composition as well as illuminate it. Find architects, interior designers and interior photographers in the PLNDesign directory.
See also:
- Ingo Maurer: the poet of light, his lamps and where to see them
- The Finally lamp casts warmer light as it dims
