MATHIEU MATÉGOT
Mathieu Matégot (1910–2001) was a versatile, independent, and self-taught Hungarian designer, architect and artist. He spent most of his life in his beloved Paris, where he settled in 1931 after traveling to Italy and the United States, studying at Budapest’s School of Art and Architecture, and gaining experience in set design, window dressing, fashion, and tapestry. In 1939, Matégot volunteered for the French army but was captured and held prisoner in Germany until his escape in 1944. Matégot’s wartime captivity was important to his later career, as it was here that he first learned about the techniques and potential of sheet metal while working in a mechanical accessories plant.
Mathieu Matégot is most known for this groundbreaking material and technique, which he named Rigitulle, where metal tubing is combined with perforated metal sheet.
BAGDAD PORTABLE LAMP
Designed in 1954, the Bagdad Lamp embodied the quintessential characteristics of Mathieu Matégot’s approach to lighting design: playful expression, signature material, and space-age aesthetic. Now, 70 years later, GUBI has reimagined the iconic lamp as a new portable version that brings the Hungarian designer’s offbeat style and technical brilliance to both indoor and outdoor settings.
Made with Matégot’s signature ‘rigitulle’ technique, whereby sheet metal is folded and perforated to create a lace-like effect – the Bagdad Lamp was inspired by the lanterns of the Middle East, hence its name. Matégot gave this classic style a distinctly futurist makeover, shaping a rigitulle sheet into an icosahedron – a geometric shape with 20 triangular sides – with an exaggerated pyramidal ‘tail’. As a result, the Bagdad resembles a cubist sculpture of a comet – thematically linking it to Matégot’s Satellite Lamp, another cosmically inspired design produced by GUBI. Of all his designs in rigitulle, the Bagdad Lamp is perhaps the most technically demanding, representing the pinnacle of Matégot’s achievements in folded metal.
DESIGNED BY MATHIEU MATÉGOT
METAL-PIONEERING MODERNIST
Like fabric, Rigitulle can be bent, folded, and shaped, giving the furniture and home accessories he designed transparency, weightlessness, and enduring modernity. Matégot patented this material and technique and set up his own production so that he could apply it to his designs.
Matégot applied his inventive approach and signature material across a range of household objects, from fruit bowls, lamps, and coat racks to an extensive furniture collection including drinks trolleys and two inspired interlocking shelving systems. His three-legged Nagasaki Chair (1954) and his Copacabana Lounge Chair (1955), both made of steel tube and perforated sheet metal, are now held in the design collections at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Centre Georges Pompidou respectively.
Like many of his peers, Matégot traveled the world in search of inspiration and, upon his return, transformed the industrial processes and aesthetic impressions he had collected into his own unique designs and interpretations. Throughout the 1950s, he devoted himself to the design of furniture and interior accessories, creating an impressive array of distinctive furniture and home accessory designs that still resonate with contemporary audiences and are now considered iconic.
To ensure quality in the production of his designs, Matégot manufactured in limited numbers of up to 400 in his own workshops in France and then Morocco. Production continued until the beginning of 1960s when he left furniture design to devote himself full-time to his tapestry work, which he would continue for the rest of his career, becoming one of the preeminent artists within French modern tapestry.
Bagdad Portable Lamp
€ 299Tropique Dining Chair
€ 799Tropique Dining Table
€ 1.499Copacabana Lounge Chair
€ 1.499Dédal Shelf
€ 299Matégot Bowl
€ 179Matégot Coat Rack
€ 179Matégot Trolley
€ 799Nagasaki Bar Stool
€ 449Satellite Pendant
€ 699Satellite Wall Lamp
€ 1.299Satellite Outdoor Floor Lamp
€ 999Satellite Outdoor Pendant
€ 699Démon Shelf
€ 349Matégot Flower Pot
€ 149