The lava lamp isn’t something you’d typically think of when imagining sophisticated interior design. Or mood lighting. Or adults. It’s a kid’s toy and college dorm room relic whose heyday is long past.
English lava lamp manufacturer Mathmos has elevated the form, though, with a sexy, dark-matte lava lamp made as a limited-edition collaboration with Dutch artist and designer Sabine Marcelis, who has previously worked with brands like Celine, Stella McCartney, and Isabel Marant.
Marcelis’s Astro Lava Lamp is made from hand-spun aluminum and painted in matte bordeaux with a hand-finished frosted coating, complete with burgundy-colored lava inside. A limited run of 1,000 are being produced and will be available to purchase online in October. Priced at 150 pounds (about $190) each, the lamps will come in bespoke burgundy boxes.
Mathmos founder Edward Craven Walker invented the original lava lamp (called the Astro) back in 1963, making the world a little more far out. It’s been continuously produced ever since, according to the company. Today, Mathmos offers the original design in five different colors with eight lava color options, in addition to special-edition releases like this one by Marcelis (she designed a white Astro Lava Lamp filled with tennis ball-yellow lava for the brand last year).
“It is a great honor to work with Sabine again after the success of her first collaborative lamp, which sold out within hours last year,” Mathmos managing director Cressida Granger said in a statement. “I’m sure her new design will be equally popular.”
The new lamp will debut this month at Marcelis’s installation at VitraHaus Loft, an exhibition space in Weil am Rhein, Germany, where she says it matches the color scheme of the burgundy bedroom she designed.
Marcelis is able to play into the lamp’s long history and adapt it for a modern context by maintaining core elements of the iconic original’s design, like its shape and function, but elevating key aesthetic features, like color and finish. Associations with college dorm rooms, be gone: In 2024, lava lamps are looking a lot more luxe.