One of the coups this year was Euroluce, a separately titled though wholly integrated show devoted to lighting, occurring biennially and held in Fiera. Karim Rashid, Georgio Gurioli and Osko+Deichmann designed some of the most interesting lights, presenting Bokka, Alone and Abyss respectively for manufacturer Kundalini. Though Rashid was concentrating on bathroom hardware in Zona Tortona this year, his 2005 Bokka remains a very attractive product, while Gurioli's Alone is a glowing wall-mounted piece that reminds of the Kaonashi character in Spirited Away. Abyss on the other hand presents a modular approach, its many bulbs linked like vertebrae, a direction also explored by Pablo Reinoso for Yamagiwa, his Bamboo Lighting System able to assume a variety of positions. A tenuous link perhaps between function and metaphor, BLS is nonetheless innovative and well resolved. Other notable lights included those made by Ingo Maurer, who presented a project co-developed with Ron Arad entitled 'TU-BE' and Arad's 1996 'aR-ingo' floor-lamp, an aluminum cylinder frayed like a metallic cheese-string. But it was another of Arad's former projects that spawned one of the most popular subjects at this year's show - the chandelier.

In 2004 Arad showed Lolita, a spiral chandelier for Swarovski that used over 2000 crystals arranged as a giant interface to display text messages. Despite this gimmick it put chandeliers into the spotlight, Swarovski since creating a Crystal Palace each year to display their latest creations. Though the Austrian company has long made questionable figurines, their explorations with lighting is much more appealing, continually finding new ways to hang humble beads as aurora borealis. Other attempts to revive chandeliers were unveiled in Zona Tortona, though few particularly noteworthy.

One exception to this was by architect-turned-omnidesigner Zaha Hadid who seems to have let her NURBS run wild, producing a series of amorphous forms that began with her Aqua table last year. Hadid's Vortexx chandelier was one of a new range of products called Seamless that includes footstools, cabinets and shelves, coming close to Ross Lovegrove's domain of abstract anthropomorphic objects. While Vortexx will no doubt become an essential accessory to Wallpaper* worshippers, her Crest bench also deserves mention: it is stunning. A golden tongue speaking in metaphors, its fluid unrest suggests male and female, mass and movement. It was one of the highlights of the show.

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