Barro de Metepec Floor Lamps

Design has the power to elevate ordinary materials from their typical cultural status, and designer Ana Victoria Molina Vargas graces the mud-based pottery, the make referred to as Barro de Metepec, with a contemporary blessing. The floor lamp is a faceted polyhedron composed of triangular faces, with one removed in order for the light to be read through its soft glow and diffusion. Also inspired by the local craft tradition is the phosphorescent paint job that dons a brightly colored cap on the floor lamp. Vargas’s work is bound to change the locals’ perception of the purportedly low-quality pottery, and offers a celebration of tradition married with modern geometries.