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Designed by Robert Dudley Best in 1930, the Bestlite BL1 Table Lamp is a coveted design worldwide with strong references to Bauhaus.
Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, personally chose the Bestlite BL1 Table Lamp for his desk in the Whitehall and history records that Churchill even took the lamp with him on his countless trips around the world. This was the big breakthrough for the Bestlite, which has made it a design classic today. The minimalistic yet distinctive design makes it the perfect fit for any home office, workspace, creative corner or even as the lighting at your bedside table or in the living room.
The Bestlite design stays close to its industrial roots and true to its original design. Bestlite is held in permanent collections at both the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Design Museum in London. Loved by architects, designers and design aficionados throughout its long history, today, Bestlite has become a contemporary classic.
Robert Dudley Best
Robert Dudley Best (1892-1984) was heir to the world's largest lighting factory, founded in Birmingham in 1840. Despite its proud history, Best felt that the lamp designs produced by the factory were outdated. In 1925, Best visited the International Exhibition of Modern Design in Paris, where many of the designs exhibited were influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.
Inspired by what he had seen, Best began his studies of industrial design in Paris and Düsseldorf, where he became close friends with Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus movement. It was during this time that he made the first sketches of what would become the iconic Bestlite design.
At GUBI, we're on a continual quest. A journey. Fuelled by our passion to discover overlooked icons from the past and future icons in the making, we've made a distinctive name for ourselves in the international design arena as a dynamic design force to be reckoned with.