Biny floor lamp – DCW éd.

Jacques Biny, 1950’

Jacques Biny was a major French lighting designer of the Trente Glorieuses period. Unlike other designers, he was also a publisher (industrial manufacturer in series) and collaborated with some of the best young designers of his time, such as Michel Buffet, Gustave Gauthier, Jean Boris Lacroix and Charles Ramos. Together they embarked on the adventure of modern mass-produced lighting.

A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Jacques Biny first settled in Valence, his native city, to practice his profession as a decorator. Faced with a lack of lighting fixtures on his building sites, he decided to design his first models which he offered to his clients. In 1950, following this fruitful experience, he returned to Paris and five years later founded his own modern lighting workshop, Luminalite.

From then on, he assiduously participated in all the major national trade fairs, produced nearly 400 models in his factory on rue de la Folie Regnault over a period of nearly thirty years and energetically engaged in associative circles, wholeheartedly defending the new science of contemporary lighting.

Modern and pioneering, the "designer-publisher" created a sophisticated range of "rational lighting fixtures" for the home, using the latest cutting-edge materials such as micro-perforated sheet metal and Plexiglas. Under his pencil, forms progress and become more radical. The function and sobriety of the lines are of primary importance: the object, through its design, is reduced to elementary and pure forms. For nearly thirty years, Jacques Biny worked to develop his profession by constantly questioning both the functionality of the models he produced and their lighting efficiency - sometimes working obsessively on the quality of light.

In the 1960s, Jacques Biny was commissioned to design lighting installations for large-scale projects such as the large cinema in Valence, Le Palace, the rooms of the Cité Universitaire in Antony and Nanterre, the prefecture in Valence and the Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint Nazaire. Jacques Biny died suddenly in 1976, while the Luminalite company was in full swing. Jacques Biny's work as a whole is different, coherent and intelligent. Jacques Biny is a kind of conductor of light. His objects are still relevant today. The Biny Table is resolutely modern.

In his words: "it is the search for the right balance between the rigours of technology and an aesthetic that integrates with contemporary architecture that has guided the creation of my lights". His early experience in decoration allowed him to consider lighting problems pragmatically and to focus on its function.