George Nelson Bubble Table Lamp by Modernica

While outfitting his office, architect and Herman Miller design director George Nelson discovered a silk-covered Swedish hanging lamp that he coveted but found too expensive. He then recalled seeing a photo in the paper of Liberty ships being mothballed “by having the decks covered with netting and then being sprayed with a self-webbing plastic,” which got him thinking. “And then, Whammo!” Inspiration struck, and by the next night, Nelson had designed his first Bubble Lamp (1952) by spinning a skeleton of steel wires on a turntable and shooting it with translucent plastic until it was covered in a smooth, washable film. “When you put a light in it, it glowed,” he said.