Incollect Magazine - Issue 15

Incollect Magazine 73 W hen Carlo Nason died on May 5, 2026, at the age of ninety-one, we lost one of the last living legends of the spectacular post-war boom of Italian design; a visionary who helped reinvent Murano glass for the modern age. While many twentieth-century Venetian glassmakers remained faithful to historical forms, Nason looked resolutely forward, embracing the optimism of the Space Age and creating lighting that fused centuries of artisanal knowledge with an unmistakably contemporary sensibility. More than fifty years after many of his most celebrated designs first appeared, they still look as though they belong to the future. Born in Venice in 1935, Nason inherited glassmaking almost by birthright. His father owned Vincenzo Nason & C., one of Murano’s leading furnaces, and from the age of eighteen he immersed himself in every aspect of production, learning the complex choreography of coloring, blowing, shaping, and finishing glass from some of the island’s finest craftsmen. Although he dutifully studied accounting at his father’s insistence, his ambitions lay elsewhere. He was drawn less to managing a family business than to exploring glass as a medium for artistic and industrial innovation. The timing proved fortuitous. By the early 1960s, international tastes were shifting decisively away from historical revivalism toward a new language of modern design. Establishing his own studio on Murano, Nason embraced the sleek optimism of the Space Age, replacing ornate decoration with fluid geometry, modular construction, and sculptural clarity. Japanese design, with its economy of form and quiet restraint, offered an equally important point of reference. Together these influences produced a body of work that looked both unmistakably Italian and remarkably international. Over the course of six decades, Nason designed well over a thousand lighting fixtures — pendants, sconces, table lamps, floor lamps, and chandeliers — making him one of the most prolific figures in postwar lighting design. Quantity alone, however, explains little. What distinguished Nason was his understanding that light itself could become a design material. Rather than simply illuminating interiors, his lamps manipulated transparency, opacity, reflection, and shadow to construct an atmosphere. Their purpose extended beyond function; they Left: In L.A. Studio’s Madrid gallery, a pair of LT 226 yellow Murano glass lamps by Carlo Nason for Mazzega sprout bouquets, adding an unexpected note of Pop Art whimsy to their futuristic form. The design has a central structure that serves as a vase. Italy, circa 1960s. Available from L.A. Studio on Incollect.com. Photo: Courtesy L.A. Studio. Right: An interior design project by L.A. Studio with Carlo Nason’s Floor Lamp Model LT 316 for Vetrerie. Milky white blends seamlessly to clear, like smoke evaporating, in the sfumato glasswork. Composed in a column of seven stacked elements to produce a striking cascading effect — a softly luminous tower of light. Italy, circa 1960s. Available from L.A. Studio on Incollect.com. Photo: Courtesy L.A. Studio.