I found this lamp in the porch of a small house in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, in Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. It is about 10 in. x 10 in. x 6 in. (25.4 cm. x 25.4 cm. x 15.2 cm.). The two side wooden elements have equally-spaced vertical slots where strips of wood veneer are bent and inserted to create a truncated conical lampshade. As an object it awkwardly resembles 20th century European design precedents such as Louis Poulsen’s collection of lamps with nesting lampshades. I say awkwardly because, in this environment, design as we know it does not exist. Here, design = craft + ad-hoc expediency, usually by means of natural materials (wood, leaves of palm, ceramics, paper, etc.) and simple methods. By ad-hoc expediency I mean a sense of resolving things in the most direct, less costly (labor and money), most expedient way. The way of building and making things here does not contemplate the idea of permanence, possibly because nature is too intense, almost unbeatable, and why bother. That is the Caribbean way and it is evident in objects and buildings, the latter put together with the thinnest, smallest amount of wooden beams and bracing elements (I call it band-aid architecture), the former belonging to two main categories: the totally crafted function-less things (wood carvings, etc.) and the ad-hoc functional objects assembled with found parts, mixed and matched in either surprisingly clever ways, or not-so-interesting ways such as this one.
