Gino Sarfatti - Master and Servant

Gino Sarfatti the unknown master

Gino Sarfatti (1912–1985) stands as one of the great intelligences of twentieth-century lighting design. Trained initially as an aeronautical engineer, he brought an analytical, almost scientific clarity to the question of light—treating it not as ornament, but as a technical and spatial problem to be solved with elegance and precision. Over the course of his career he designed more than 600 lamps, each marked by an exceptional balance between innovation and restraint.

Sarfatti’s genius lies in his ability to merge advanced engineering with a refined visual language. He was among the first to experiment systematically with new materials—aluminium, plastics, halogen bulbs—always in service of function, never novelty. His forms are lucid and purposeful, yet quietly poetic, anticipating both industrial rationalism and the later language of Italian modernism. In Sarfatti’s work, light becomes architecture: calibrated, intelligent, and profoundly modern.