They’re shapely, chic, sexy and sometimes funky. They lend color 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, more compact than an iPod 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 Swarovski 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. Pendants can punch up or instigate color schemes. Some are so breathtaking that they are like works of art.
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.”
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. 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.
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 1st Century A.D.
Around the 3rd Century, glass added a new aesthetic, a peek through to the flickering light source.
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.
Winning new admirers
The popularity of Midcentury Modernism and the re-edition of these pendant lamps have drawn a new set of admirers, as have the classic light sculptures of Isamu Noguchi and Mariano Fortuny. Noguchi’s Akari orbs are crafted with handmade washi paper and bamboo ribbing; Fortuny’s medium was silk hand-painted in gold in Occidental motifs and trimmed with silk cords and glass beads.
In the 1980s, innovative contemporary lighting shown in Milan at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile furniture exposition sparked excitement in design magazines. Vividly hued Murano glass shades were unlike anything available in the United States. But American designers eager to import this eye candy were disappointed because neither the lamps nor the small-bulb halogen lights that fit inside were approved to meet the criteria for fire protection and safety set by Underwriters Laboratory.
In the late 1980s, some of the European pendants began to appear. Greg Kay, a master electrician and lighting designer in Chicago, was instrumental in updating U.S. electrical codes to accommodate the new low-voltage systems. He integrated the colorful handcrafted Murano glass into his own tech lighting systems, low-voltage lighting that operates on tracks or from single “monopoints.” Today his 20,000-square-foot Lightology showroom at 215 W. Chicago Ave. is a premier showcase for contemporary lighting.
In the last decade, pendant lights proliferated in retail stores and in commercial establishments such as Starbucks, where amber Italian glass pendants always have been a calculated element of the ambience. Customers headed to lighting stores hoping to bring the look home.
Getting playful
Glass offers a kinetic dimension. Light dances as it shines through glass, and color 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 confettilike model called Mardi Gras.
Glass or acrylic assumes a different identity when cut into mirrorlike 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 mollusks also known as “windowpane oysters” found in the Philippines and Indonesia), which lend a translucent quality.
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.
“Pendants are more like pieces of jewelry in the home,” Orozco says. “They sparkle, bring in color, 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.
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Let there be light
Here are some sources for pendant lighting.
CB2: 3757 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-755-3900, and 800 W. North Ave., 312-787-8329.
Museum of Contemporary Art: 220 E. Chicago Ave., 312-280-2660.
And Bob’s Your Uncle: 212-627-7702 or www.andbobsyouruncle.com.
Galbraith and Paul: 215-508-0800 or www.galbraithandpaul.com.
Lightology: 866-954-4489, ext. 244, or www.lightology.com.
Meyda Tiffany: 800-222-4009 or www.meydatiffany.com.
Museum of Modern Art Design Store: 800-447-6662 or www.momastore.org.
Oggetti: 305-576-1044 or www.oggetti.com
Trans-Luxe: 212-925-5863 or www.trans-luxe.com.
West Elm: 866-937-8356 or www.westelm.com.
— Elaine Markoutsas
