Milan 2014: Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune has created a modular chandelier, with strings of ovoid-shaped lights influenced by the shape of grapes hanging on a vine.
Claesson Koivisto Rune‘s Grappa chandelier for London company Wonderglass comprises glass diffusers produced in two slightly different lengths. These can be arranged along a central stem to create strings of glowing beads.
“Like a bunch of grapes on a vine, nature creates beauty through variation within repetition,” said the designers. “The bunch consists of a number of the same-shaped grapes but each grape varies slightly in size to the next.”
“With this mental image in mind, we have developed a concept based on stacking a series of lampshades to create columns of various lengths,” they added.
Influenced by the spectacular chandeliers that hang in palaces and grand buildings, the designers wanted to develop a modular product that can be used to create large installations as well as smaller lighting fixtures.
Combining the two elements in various configurations results in a multitude of subtly different installations that can be adapted to suit specific spaces.
The translucent glass shades diffuse light from rows of LED bulbs fixed to the surface of a transparent column and the LEDs can also emit coloured light if desired.
Installing the Grappa chandelier
Wonderglass uses traditional glass-blowing facilities in Venice to produce the elements of its chandeliers. The brand also launched designs by Zaha Hadid and John Pawson at its Milan exhibition last week.
The Ice chandelier by Daniel Libeskind is made up of clear glass cells blown into angular moulds, creating icicle-like forms.
These pieces are arranged in a cluster and suspended from a reflective triangular plate. The glass sections can be reconfigured into different shapes.
When hung below a light source, the light shines through the glass shafts and illuminates the edges.
The glass pieces were hand-blown by craftsmen at Lasvit‘s Czech Republic factory.
“It is so gratifying to collaborate with skilled workers whose expertise derives from centuries of design intelligence and artistic ambition, yet who are willing to experiment and do things differently to help realise my ideas,” said Libeskind.
“I am always mindful when designing products, just as I am as an architect, to create something truly unique and functional,” he added.
The Ice chandelier will be exhibited at Officine Stendhal, Via Stendhal 35, in Milan’s Tortona district.
The Gabriel Chandelier by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec is the first permanent contemporary artwork to be installed at the Château de Versailles and hangs over the Gabriel Staircase at the main entrance to the palace.
“We thought that in the final analysis it was not perhaps necessary to give a delineated form to this piece of lighting but rather to try to arrange it so that the form naturally found its line from gravity,” said the designers.
“Because it is effectively the number of pieces of crystal which make it up, the weight and the length determine this form rather than a curve which we would have drawn.”
Manufactured by crystal brand Swarovski, the 12-metre-high installation comprises 800 crystal modules threaded around a stainless steel skeleton containing an LED lighting system.
“It seemed to us that crystal was the best response because, historically, all the chandeliers at Versailles were made with this material,” the designers added. “This would ensure a link between past and present.”
The Gabriel Staircase was conceived by french architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1772 but was never completed. Work resumed in the 1980s, then Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec won the commission to create a permanent artwork to adorn and illuminate the finished staircase through a competition launched in 2011.
A dramatic new chandelier created by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec with the support and expertise of Swarovski will light up the entrance to the King’s Grand Apartments at the Palace of Versailles from November 2013.
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec won the commission through a competition launched in 2011 by the Public Administration of the Palace, Museum and State Property Department for Versailles to create a permanent mobile artwork to adorn and illuminate the grand Gabriel Staircase at the main entrance to the palace.
The award-winning designers created a majestic chandelier made of Swarovski crystal whose sweeping grace and modern lines integrate harmoniously with the historically charged location. The piece, which is over 12 metres high, is suspended in loops from the ceiling like a luminous transparent chain. It comprises three interlacing strands, each made of hundreds of Swarovski crystals illuminated by luminous LED light-sources which diffuse a gentle, continuous and encircling light.
These immense, supple lines form an organic design ruled by the laws of gravity which each viewer will experience differently as they gradually ascend the two flights of steps of the Staircase.
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
To create the chandelier, the designers chose crystal, the material traditionally used in the making of chandeliers for ceremonial rooms, in order to establish a strong link between the past and the present. They called upon the expertise and technological mastery of Swarovski, the prestigious Austrian crystal business, which has a longstanding collaborative relationship with the brothers and has supported the Palace of Versailles for more than 30 years.
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s creation is a delicate yet complex alliance of crystal and innovative lighting, two areas in which Swarovski has long become the point of reference. The project forms part of Swarovski’s major programme of cultural support and ongoing patronage of art and design.
The Gabriel Staircase, a monumental space conceived by Ange- Jacques Gabriel in 1772, was never completed. Work resumed in the 1980s, but the finished staircase lacked a focal point. The installation of the ‘Gabriel Chandelier’ in November will enrich these historic surroundings, emphasising the entrance to the Grand Apartments whilst preserving the unique nature of the space.
Despite the recent infatuation with the Edison bulb, in the past few years there have been drastic improvements made to commercial incandescent lights; from miniature LEDs to the handsome, energy-saving Plumen. And while that remains an exciting and innovative field to watch, on our recent trip to London…
Canadian lighting brand Bocci has installed a giant chandelier of colourful glass spheres in the main hall of the V&A museum for the London Design Festival, which kicks off on Saturday (+ slideshow).
“To finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us,” said Arbel. “We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.”
The chandelier descends 30 metres from the ceiling of the first floor gallery and through a hole in the floor to emerge into the museum’s main atrium.
Glass lights are scattered down the column of copper wires that falls straight at the top of the piece, then splays outward haphazardly in the foyer.
A surreal light installation by Bocci created as part of the London Design Festival exhibits at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
During this year’s London Design Festival eleventh edition, the Canadian design brand Bocci will present a lighting installation at the festival’s hub venue, the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Entitled 28.280 and designed by Omer Arbel, the installation is a massive vertically punctuated light installation located at the main atrium of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The installation, featuring Bocci’s celebrated 28, will descend through the large existing void cutting through the entire length of the V&A building, with an astonishing height of more than 30 meters. The intent of the installation is twofold; On the one hand, it is a pure celebration of the monumental open height of the building, which uses light to crystallise a powerful phenomenological experience for the viewer. On the other hand, it is the most ambitious exploration to date of a novel glass blowing technique.
28 is an exploration of a fabrication process – part of Arbel’s and Bocci’s quest for specificity. Instead of designing form itself, here the intent was to design a system that haphazardly yields form, almost as a byproduct. 28 pendants result from a complex glass blowing technique whereby air pressure is introduced into and then removed from a glass matrix which is intermittently heated and then rapidly cooled. The result is a distorted spherical shape with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of which is made of opaque milk glass and houses a light source.
280 of these discreet 28 units will be hung within a 30 metre vertical drop, suspended by a novel, perhaps awkward and heavy copper suspension system, that promises to have as much presence or more than the glass it supports. The installation continues Omer’s personal research into the process of making, and documents Arbel’s remarkable journey as an articulator of form.
“We have always dreamed of mounting a light installation in a very very tall space… In the world of ideas, a tall space is the most appropriate environment for our pieces (abstractly speaking, I could say the ONLY environment for our pieces). Hence, to have the opportunity to finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us on both a personal and professional level. We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.” – Omer Arbel
Colin Kennedy décide de filmer et de raconter l’histoire de cet arbre étrange qui se dresse au milieu de sa rue. Adam Tenenbaum imagine et crée cet arbre hors du commun entre nature et bien commun, dont le nom vient des nombreux lustres qui peuplent ses branches. Un projet étrange et fascinant à découvrir en images.
French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created a chandelier for a château in Marseille, France, that looks like an illuminated rope suspended from the ceiling.
Mathieu Lehanneur used contemporary lighting technology to create a reinterpretation of a chandelier that contrasts with the opulent interior of the eighteenth century building.
Glass tubes containing strips of LEDs puncture the underside of a mezzanine in the château’s entrance hall and seem to hang down like loops of rope.
“It is not an object. It is not a light fitting. It is the light itself that seems to live and circulate in the entrance space, as if stitched onto the building itself,” explains Lehanneur.
The newly renovated Château Borély opened earlier this month and is now home to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, de la Faïence et de la Mode (Museum of Decorative Arts, Earthenware and Fashion).
For the opening of Château Borély, now Musée des Arts Décoratifs, de la Faïence et de la Mode in Marseille, Mathieu Lehanneur has designed a monumental chandelier for the entrance hall. “This chandelier was conceived as a rope of light crossing the ceiling, only bands of light and glass are visible. It is not an object. It is not a light fitting. It is the light itself that seems to live and circulate in the entrance space, as if stitched onto the building itself,” summarised the designer.
An impressive visually, on the boundary between light and special effects, since the conventional ceremonial light has been abandoned to pay tribute to the spirit of the place in a more modern fashion. Built in 1760, the Borély country house was a house for holidays and celebrations where the Borély family welcomed their friends. With this light, Mathieu Lehanneur regains the breath of fresh air that formerly blew over the Provençale house.
Materials: LEDs, tubes of borosilicate glass, luminous control system. Production agency: Eva Albarran & Co
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Steel rings were moulded around a wooden chandelier before it was burnt away, leaving this latest piece in a collection of disintegrated furniture by Amsterdam-based Studio Markunpoika.
Studio Markunpoika founder Tuomas Markunpoika formed a web of rings around the original wood piece then set it alight to leave a fuzzy memory of the original object. “The hardest part was to find a suitable light source, and to fix wiring so itcontoured the inside shape and didn’t interfere with the see-through aesthetics,” Markunpoika told Dezeen.
The twelve-piece collection, which includes a cabinet (above) and chair (below), was nominated in the furniture category for Designs of the Year 2013. “When working on the other pieces of the collection I couldn’t help noticing how exquisitely the multilayered exoskeleton was interacting with light and movement,” said Markunpoika. “The chandelier seemedlike a good next step.”
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