Foscarini presented Asteria at Milan Design Week 2025, a new suspension lamp designed by Alberto and Francesco Meda that approaches the chandelier not as an object of ornamentation but as a problem of engineering resolved to its essentials.
The lamp is built around a V-section extruded aluminium arm, curved horizontally, with an LED strip set into its upper surface and covered by a transparent film. Light bleeds subtly from the edges of each arm while also emitting upward and radially; a separate light source housed at the base of the central vertical cylinder directs illumination downward, making the lamp suited to placement over a dining table. All wiring is concealed within the structure. No element of the technology is visible.
Six arms constitute one level of the chandelier. In the multi-level configuration, up to three such levels stack in a staggered arrangement around the central cylinder. Single-level versions are available in three sizes. Foscarini supplies all configurations as curated preset sets rather than allowing buyers to compose freely, a decision the brand frames as a means of preserving compositional coherence.
The designers have described the intent as making simple things resolved from a constructive viewpoint — a formulation that reflects Alberto Meda's background in industrial engineering as much as in design. Alberto Meda, born in 1945 in Tremezzina, has worked across several decades with manufacturers including Vitra, Luceplan, Kartell, Alessi, and Artemide. Francesco Meda, born in 1984 in Milan, studied at the Istituto Europeo di Design; together, the pair bring an engineering-inflected sensibility to questions of material and structure.
Asteria follows the duo's earlier collaboration with Foscarini, Chiaroscura, which reinterpreted the Luminator — a floor lamp designed by Pietro Chiesa in 1933. Where Chiaroscura engaged with a canonical modernist object, Asteria takes on the chandelier, a form more freighted with historical association and one that fell from favour in design circles during the late twentieth century as minimalism became the prevailing mode.
Foscarini's 2025 chandelier programme positions Asteria alongside distinct contributions from Dordoni Studio, whose Étoile is part of the same initiative, and Francesca Lanzavecchia, who has produced both Allumette and Tilia for the collection. The programme amounts to a deliberate institutional reading of the chandelier's contemporary possibilities, commissioning multiple designers to arrive at different answers to the same formal question.
Retail pricing, dimensional specifications, and commercial availability dates for Asteria have not been announced.
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