Bestlite BL9S, BL9M & BL9L pendant

design Robert Dudley Best

The BL9 pendant is part of the Bestlite family. The pendant is available in 3 sizes, BL9 S, BL9 M and BL9 L.

The Bestlite lamp have been designed in 1930 by Robert Dudley Best. Because of their unusual conception for its time, he had trouble to find a manufacturer and the first Bestlite have been therefore produced by the Manufaktur & Lloyd, founded in 1840 by an ancestor of the family. In 1932, the magazine Architects saw in the Bestlite the first manifestation of the Bauhaus in Great Britain. Since 2004, the company belongs to the Danish Gubi, which allowed its comeback on the international stage. The lights continue to be manufactured in England. For the record, note that Winston Churchill had chosen a Bestlite as desk lamp.

BL9S Ø16 x H14 cm BL9M Ø21 x H18 cm BL9L H33 x Ø40 cm

Light source 1 socket E14 (BL9S and BL9M) – 1 socket E27 (BL9L)

BL9S Ø16cm
Black Brass / Black Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Black Brass / Black Brass
449 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Bone China / Black Brass
425 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Bone China / Black Brass
475 €

BL9S Ø16cm
White / Black Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
White / Black Brass
449 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Bone China / Brass
425 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Bone China / Brass
475 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Brass / Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Brass / Brass
449 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Grey / Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Grey / Brass
449 €

BL9L Ø40cm
Grey / Brass
499 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Black / Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Black / Brass
449 €

BL9L Ø40cm
Black / Brass
499 €

BL9S Ø16cm
White / Brass
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
White / Brass
449 €

BL9L Ø40cm
White / Brass
499 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Bone China / Chrome
425 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Bone China / Chrome
475 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Chrome / Chrome
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Chrome / Chrome
449 €

BL9S Ø16cm
Black / Chrome
399 €

BL9M Ø21cm
Black / Chrome
449 €

BL9L Ø40cm
Black / Chrome
499 €

BL9S Ø16cm
White / Chrome
399 €

BL3M Ø21cm
White / Chrome
449 €

BL3L Ø40cm
White / Chrome
499 €

Robert Dudley Best

Robert Dudley Best (1892-1984) was heir to the world's largest lighting manufacturing company Best & Lloyd, founded in Birmingham in 1840. Despite the company's proud history of providing traditional lamps to a prestigious clientele, including Titanic and the Orient Express, Dudley Best was interested in a new collection that symbolised the spirit of the new age by appealing to the more avant-garde architects and setting a new agenda for lamp design.

Robert Dudley Best, a keen design enthusiast on top of his prominence as a young industrialist, spent the 1920's travelling around Europe meeting designers and furthering his interest in modernist movement. After visiting the Exhibition of Modern Design in Paris in 1925, where many of the designs exhibited were influenced by the work of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, he enrolled at the School of Industrial Design in Düsseldoft and in Paris. Interested in breaking the barriers between industrial and artistic merit, Dudley Best's ideals were shared by his friend Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus movement. It was during this period that Dudley Best made the first sketches of what would become the iconic Bestlite design.

Following Bauhaus principles, Dudley Best had done away with the trimmings and detail of traditional Best & Lloyd products; he had both commercial and domestic use in mind and believed that lighting should be functional and practical as well as elegant. With this in mind, he returned to Birmingham in 1930, determined to put his Bestlite lamp design into production.

Bestlite BL9S, BL9M & BL9L pendantdesign Robert Dudley Best

Bestlite BL9S, BL9M & BL9L pendant

design Robert Dudley Best