I’m leafing through a magazine as I write, especially enjoying the rooms that manifest a daring color palette. All decorating magazines periodically do a feature on how to go wild with color successfully.

What a classic crystal chandelier contributes, besides its own very obvious pizzazz, is a subtle way of continually harmonizing the colors in a room. A crystal chandelier reflects and refracts whatever colors surround it. Look closely at the crystal and you’ll see all these colors, not quite literally, but in spectral bursts of color leaping off the facets of the crystal.

Colors have a lot of energy and emotional impact. It’s good to invite these sometimes contradictory energies to mingle and shimmer together in the purifying fire of a crystal chandelier. Suddenly it all makes beautiful sense.

Another interesting idea for a color-rich room is a black crystal chandelier like Hamilton. Black crystal contrasts beautifully with saturated colors, and its glossy quality is rather restful in a stimulating environment.

Contrasting colors can make it difficult to establish a focal point in a visual field. A Schonbek chandelier, whether clear crystal or black crystal, provides an instant and compelling focal point in a room.

Thursday, May 22, 2008
Contemporary lighting can be anything from a highly stylized crystal chandelier to a cubist sculpture.

It can be a massive presence that dominates space, or a whimsical little thing floating lightly in space.

Take a look at our contemporary chandeliers page on this website.

Jasmine, for example, is perfectly recognizable as a crystal chandelier. But it’s been pared down to a very pure shape. The crystal is concentrated in the body of the design. It’s more acturately a chandelier of crystal rather than with crystal. The arms are exceedingly slender and unadorned, yet they wend their sinuous way through space with great élan.

Quantum, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to a crystal chandelier. Yet it combines light and crystal with dazzling effect, so we simply consider it a whole new kind of crystal chandelier.

Eclecticism is invading every area of interior design. Fashion rather than tradition often drives the design of a vintage setting. And a minimalist setting need no longer be strictly minimal.

A highly disciplined space gains emotional resonance with a glittering strip of crystal above the dining table. Or several slabs of crystalline brilliance might be staggered in a cavernous foyer to stir the imagination. These are cases where Quantum designs can interject a bit of mystery and extravagance.

We can probably thank technology for the triumph of eclecticism. After all, we had to find a way to justify putting a computer on an antique desk. Or surrounding a mammoth HDTV with old-fashioned armchairs. Now that we’re past any hurdles of that sort, we can do whatever we like with a space. The warmth and fire of crystal is ours to play with anywhere and everywhere.

Monday, May 19, 2008
If you like brilliance on a cosmic scale, Plaza may be just the crystal chandelier for you. It’s a new design, and we’ve just put it on the website. We show two of the available sizes, one with a single tier and one multi tiered.

When I interviewed Andrew Schonbek to write the press release, he said it looked rather like a flying saucer. (I didn’t put that in the release.) But there’s definitely something awesome and otherworldly about this chandelier.

Plaza is a very circular. Surprisingly, this uncompromising circularity is achieved with an outer structure of square and rectangular crystal jewels.

Andrew pointed out to me the “fabulous grids” at the bottom of each tier of Plaza crystal chandeliers. You look up at a sea of crystal octagons that hide the inner framework and lamping of the chandelier, and this fabric of crystal is dazzling in a way that differs from the dazzle of the perimeter of the chandelier. So there’s an intriguing complexity at work here.

The faceted crystal ball at the finial point of Plaza centers and grounds the chandelier design, and generates spectral bursts of light in its own right.

Plaza and Quantum are related designs, although Plaza is circular and Quantum totally angular. But their crystal components are the same square and rectangular crystal shapes. For this reason the wall sconces that bear the name Quantum will work beautifully with Plaza crystal chandeliers.

Plaza is a contemporary design, but something about its circular shape makes it mix well with eclectic furnishings. If there’s a strong architectural personality to the space, that would be another tie-in with Plaza, with its imposing presence.