www.lavalamphistory.com | The History of the lava lamp & lava lamp history | The Astro lava lamp, the world's very first lava lamp design.

Below: Edward Craven Walker's 1963 launch of the Astro lamp in Great Britain, the World's very first lava lamp created a radically new take on lighting and what light could possibly achieve and represent. Unlike traditional lighting, designed conceptually to purely illuminate with white light, the Astro lamp presented a unique new concept to the world, that merged the properties of liquid, colour and chaos into an object of constantly moving hypnotic shapes all encased in a glass bottle, and illuminated by a mere light bulb. These liquids come to life when the lava lamp is switched on and present a theatre of light, chaos and form, and fall back to sleep when the product is switched off. It was a fascination with a carefully curated kinetic, sculpural, secret illuminated liquid motion, that created a product that would become so iconic of the 1960s and the 1970s, presenting a defining image of its time.

It is that kinetic ambient liquid lighting effect of the original Mathmos lava lamp that still amazes and draws people in today. In fact, the Astro lamp holds a mirror to the iconic time, fashion and culture of the 1960s. Its vibrant colours, rebellious yet graceful choatic motion created a product that was perfect for introduction in the 1960s and mirrors the cultural change of the era. Infinately greater than any sum of parts, the Astro lamp is a cultural icon and a Great British invention that has touched the lives of millions all over the world.
The story of the lava lamp commences in Poole, England, Great Britain and it is a Great British invention, still manufactured with pride and care in Dorset today. In fact, Mathmos the original manufacturer has upheld its British manufacturing and the Astro and Astro Baby designs are manufactured in the United Kingdom and have been symomisous with Southern English manufacturing to create the world's very best lava lamps. From their filling at the Mathmos British factory with the super secret Mathmos formulation, to the metal spun bases and caps, the Mathmos lava lamp is a British design icon, made to the highest standard, care and quality. Each lava lamp contains a base which provides the heat and light to power the lava lamp, a lava lamp bottle that contains the super secret lava lamp formulation and a cap placed on the top of the bottle.

The journey of the Astro lamp is one of design excellence, innovation and vision. True to it being declared as a design icon, it has a true ablity to transcend time through decades from its introduction in 1963, to continued popularity in the 1970s, a revival in the 1990s and continuation today in 2013, fifty years later. It is a product of multiple generations illuminating people's lives from the 1960s to today.

Another remarkable attribute is that the iconic design of the Astro lamp, instantly recognisable in silhouette and has little changed over the years, keeping its iconic angles and lines. Over the decades the Astro lamp has been offered in a countless myriad of fashionable colour combinations over the years. Earlier models of the Astro lamp are often seen with copper anodic finished bases and caps and more subtly named colour combinations such as Ruby/Rose. In the 1990s, the then looking traditional copper Astro finish transitioned to polished silver aluminium in keeping with the styles of the time. Refreshed contemporary colour combinations such as Violet/Red, Violet/Orange and Blue/Green have become classic iconic colourways. With Smart Astro launched in 2010, Mathmos looks to the future by replacing the light bulb with colour changing LEDs, to create a stunning changing colour lava lamp that fuses cutting-edge LED technology with the classic motion of the lava lamp. Thank you to all the kind people who donated images and especially Dermot Shanahan for photos of his Princess lamp.