ULTRALIGHT COMPANY
Otto and Ridi Kolb
[Otto and Ridi Kolb]: ULTRALIGHT COMPANY. Paterson, NJ: Kolb Lighting Company and Rudan Associates, [1955]. Original edition. Four items: press release on Kolb Lighting letterhead announcing the merger of Kolb Lighting Company and Rudan Associates to form the Ultralight Company, along with a single page price light dated October 1, 1955, an Ultralight Company product catalog consisting of 21 sheets printed recto only hand gathered and stapled [as issued], featuring 21 lamps reproduced in halftone with specifications, ordering instructions and terms, all housed in a hand addressed Ultralight Company mailing envelope. Lightly handled, but a nearly fine set. Rare.
[3] 8.5 x 11 documents housed in original 9 x 12 mailing envelope. “The widely acclaimed modern designs by Otto and Ridi Kolb and the enthusiastically received new RUDAN creations combined with the enlarged manufacturing facilities at ULTRALIGHT enable us to offer the most outstanding line of modern table, floor, wall and ceiling lamps, each a distinctive masterpiece.”
Otto Kolb (Swiss, 1921 – 1996) was an Architect and Designer who came to the United States in 1948 to head the Product Design Department at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He partnered with his wife Ridi, an illustrator and Interior Designer from Vienna, to form Kolb Associates. Kolb designed a lamp for the San Francisco Museum of Art’s “Design in the Living Room” in 1949. In addition to teaching, Mr. Kolb built several contemporary homes in the US and abroad, including the round Solarhaus in Zürich, his last project and final residence. The Solarhaus reflected his radical ideas about housing and living in absolute harmony with nature. In a manuscript Kolb wrote about the house, he quotes the psychoanalyst Carl Jung: “The house of man should be round, to remember the protected mother’s lap (unconsciously the womb).” Kolb goes on to say: “But this was not the only argument for making the house round. A circular shape has the smallest possible surface contact with the (cold) outdoor climate and the wind, and is capable of absorbing sunlight and heat the whole day long.”