Southern lights shone across the northern Italian city of Milan during the world’s most important design fair, Salone del Mobile, in April.

In the centre of town at influential Rossana Orlandi gallery, a few streets from where da Vinci’s Last Supper adorns the walls of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church, Brisbane-based designer Alexander Lotersztain unveiled his Tsukiko (Moon Child) table lamp, developed with 10th-generation Kyoto lantern-makers Kojima Shoten. Essentially a bulbous paper shade perched atop a robust bamboo base, it effectively contemporises a venerable technique.