This tiered pendant is made from paper, with durable backing over a metal frame. The pendant hangs 16 inches and is available in aloe or white from West Elm for US$65 (J$4,030). - PHOTOS DISTIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
They're shapely, chic, sexy and sometimes funky. They lend colour and personality to interiors. And they light up a room.
If you've somehow overlooked pendant lights, you're missing out on a small accessory that packs electrifying clout in the home today.
PENDANT LIGHTS ...
... are scaled-down versions of chandeliers, a single hanging entity without the extra branches. The light may be stripped to a bare bulb suspended from a rod or cord or housed in a decorative shade crafted from glass, resin, metal or fabric.
Pendants range in size from tiny to a lantern 22 inches in diameter, some even as zaftig as 48 inches. Truth be told, they may be every bit as fancy as chandeliers, studded with expensive crystals or dangling gemstones, or even cocooned in, of all things, feathers. For the most part, their design is contemporary in spirit.
Interior designers and architects love them because they're more interesting than the recessed lighting that makes Swiss cheese out of ceilings. Pendants can punch up or instigate colour schemes. Some are so breathtaking that they are like works of art floating in space-like mobiles.
Pendants are "as important to a room as your best piece of furniture," according to Sergio Orozco, a Manhattan-based furniture and lighting designer. "They reflect your taste and add a finishing touch. You're buying an accessory that lights up."
What this particular lighting does is fashion an oasis in a space, setting a mood.
"Pendants can create an island. They can reflect, diffuse, be translucent," Orozco says. The effect is "magic, drama and intimacy."
FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT
Although larger pendants can deliver 100 watts or more, bathing an entire room in light, mini-pendants typically serve as task lights defining the work surface of a kitchen island or bar, for example. They often are hung in multiples, sometimes in a straight line or staggered at different heights for dramatic effect.
But Orozco also has used pendants in foyers, bedrooms and baths.
"Many of our clients don't really want a lamp on a bedside table," Orozco explains. "So we drop two or three mini-pendants above it, which frees up the surface for books and other things."
Pendant lamps are trendy now, but they also have a rich history, pre-electricity. Dating to 2700 B.C., diminutive hanging lamps of clay burned animal fat. The Greeks continued to employ clay, and the Romans also used bronze for oil lamps in the first century A.D.
Around the third century, glass added a new aesthetic, a peek through to the flickering light source. There are exquisite examples of decorative Byzantine lamps of glass framed in bronze and dating to the 11th century. Hanging kerosene and oil lanterns from the 19th and early 20th centuries still turn up today at flea markets.
With more ornate crystal chandeliers originating in France in the 17th century and England in the early 18th century, smaller pendants with opalescent or frosted glass or crystals were designed up to the early 20th century.
Architect George Nelson's sculptural 'bubble lamps' lit up contemporary interiors in the 1950s. Distinguished by elliptical and cigar- or pear-shaped spheres, created by spray-coating a skeleton of steel wire with a layer of translucent plastic, light glows within in an almost ethereal way.
The popularity of mid-20th-century
modernism and the re-edition of these pendant lamps have drawn a new set of admirers.
"Consumers are now thinking out of the box," says Sue Grisham, managing editor of Home Lighting & Accessories, a trade publication based in Clifton, New Jersey. "The demand has lighting manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon."
ARCHITECTURAL PRESENCE
Technology now encourages curious mixes of media or applications such as pierced shades made of laser-cut brass, aluminium or plastic.
Viewed as accessories, pendants can be chosen for their form, which imparts an architectural presence, colour, pattern and texture. And the pendants do make style points in a room. A white paper shade that looks like an upside-down layer cake is crisp, a strong focal point over a table.
Patterns, used sparingly, can be equally effective. Galbraith and Paul, a firm known for its hand-blocked fabrics, designs lamps that feature organic patterns dominated by a citrus-accented palette of apricot and marigold. Like throw pillows or wallpaper, the pattern is especially fetching if it's the only one in a room, punctuating a solid hue of a sofa or area rug. And the simplicity of its shapes funnel, drum or hexagon complements the designs.
Glass offers a kinetic dimension. Light dances as it shines through glass, and colour comes alive. A formidable selection ranges from opaque bell shapes, etched or frosted solids, or lively patterns that are polka-dotted or striped.
Even manufacturers of old-fashioned styles such as Meyda Tiffany, known for traditional stained glass and mica looks, are producing more playful designs. One new spin features handkerchief-shaped shades available in stripes, checkerboard or a confetti-like model called Mardi Gras.
Glass or acrylic assumes a different identity when cut into mirror-like squares or discs, then assembled into intriguing tiered forms resembling chandeliers dripping with crystals. The style also works with other materials such as capiz shells (the outer shells of marine molluscs also known as "windowpane oysters" found in the Philippines and Indonesia), which lend a translucent quality.
whimsical design
A more whimsical design is that of Tord Boontje (pronounced BOON-gee), a Dutch-born product designer. His Midsummer shade light is made from Tyvek, a material used in wrapping buildings during construction. It has qualities of both paper and fabric. Reminiscent of origami confection, the piece looks like intricately cut lace, gathered to a point and left to drape freely.
From And Bob's Your Uncle, the design duo of Steven Wine and Michael Landon combine glassblowing and metalworking experience with fashion expertise in their fanciful designs. Landon's costumes have appeared in Broadway's "The Lion King," and a playful nature is apparent in his pendant lighting as well. For example, 4-foot spheres cloaked in ostrich feathers were designed by the company to span a pool table in Lenny Kravitz's New York City loft.
Another metal fixture from Wine and Landon was inspired by a dress designed by French designer Paco Rabanne. The pendant was crafted from interlinking circles wrapped around an acrylic dome with the light inside.
Other meshy pendants are studded with gemstones. The suggestion of 'bling' is not accidental.
"Pendants are more like pieces of jewellery in the home," Orozco says. "They sparkle, bring in colour, soften a clean, austere environment. Actually, a lamp should be interesting and pretty, even without the light.
"In interior design, pendants may be one of the most important elements of the century," Orozco says.
SOURCES
-- And Bob's Your Uncle: www.andbobsyouruncle.com.
-- Galbraith and Paul: www.galbraithandpaul.com.
-- Lightology: www.lightology.com.
-- Meyda Tiffany: www.meydatiffany.com.
-- Museum of Modern Art Design Store: www.momastore.org.
-- Oggetti: www.oggetti.com
-- Trans-Luxe: www.trans-luxe.com.
-- West Elm: or www.westelm.com
Locally, check out the variety of pendant lights at lighting, hardware and furniture stores.
