Light Fair has closed, and our stand has gone quiet. For four days it was anything but quiet: questions in a dozen languages, hands hovering above a switch, that small pause people make when a lamp comes on and the room rearranges itself around the light. To everyone who crossed the hall to find us — thank you.

The room we carried with us

We make lamps for rooms we will never see, so a fair stand is the one place we get to build the room as well. Dark walls. A low ceiling. A long table in blackened metal, and plaster that still showed the trowel. We kept the shell plain on purpose, so the light could step forward: a warm pool on the table, a slow wash along one wall, one small piece burning by itself at the far end, where the aisle narrowed and people slowed down.

That is where the questions started. Visitors reached for the surfaces, and we told them to go ahead, please, touch. Gold leaf laid by hand keeps the record of the hand that laid it. A shade hides its source and gives back only part of what it takes in. Form follows one rule for us: whatever the light needs in order to stay soft.

What people asked us

Three questions came round again and again, all week — from architects, from shopkeepers, from a father who lifted his daughter up so she could look inside a glass shade. We wrote the answers down, because they say more about our work than any catalogue page does.

• Where is that glow coming from? A hidden source, a hand-finished reflector, and a good deal of patience.
• Can you make it in another finish? Yes, and in another size, and with a fix for a ceiling that is not quite level.
• When could it hang in my house? We gave honest dates. We intend to keep them.

Then came the last hour, when the aisles emptied and our neighbours began folding their stands away. A man from across the way sat down at the long table and asked us to switch everything on once more. We did. Nobody spoke for a while. A fair lasts four days; a lamp stays in a house long after the crates go back. Thank you for giving us some of yours. Until next time — leave the light on.