When a certain innovative chap who created the cosmos said, “Let there be light,” one has the feeling this is what he had in mind. Foscarini, the renowned Italian lighting company, makes lamps that are far from just everyday functional appliances—they are works of art, and come in shapes that could easily have been dreamed up by Dr. Seuss. Mushrooms, fishing rods, diamond bracelets, champagne flutes, Calder mobiles, flying saucers—you name it, and Foscarini has probably made a lamp shaped like it. Whether made of glass, metal, Kevlar, or carbon, these lamps scatter light like luminous crystal.

The Museum of Modern Art has a Foscarini lamp as part of its permanent collection, as does the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but fine lighting lovers can get their fix by strolling down to the new Foscarini shop recently opened in SoHo. The 3,500-square-foot space, in a landmark building near the foot of Greene Street and just a stone’s throw from Chinatown, is part lamp emporium, part art gallery. A series of art exhibits and installations will be seen alongside the brand’s menagerie of lighting options, which are housed in innovative, modular display cases, stacked on top of each other like playful building blocks. The cases—some small, some large, some square, some rectangular—can be rearranged depending on the offerings for each season.   

The look is hip, modern, dazzling to the eye. And don’t miss the lamps made in collaboration with Diesel, a collection that includes fixtures inspired by headlights, in faux denim, and as intriguing to look at whether turned on or off. -- Joseph V. Amodio