Friday, August 24, 2007

Life is an interesting mix of  keeping your balance and being creative, stability and change. For Schonbek this means staying grounded in the classic form of the crystal chandelier – and breaking with tradition on a regular basis to reinvent the form.

The Schonbek portfolio reminds me of an extended family. There are timeless designs rooted in the past, representing mature members of the group. There are Geometrix® designs, the crazy teenagers in the family. And in between there are quite a few eclectic designs that might be considered the working adults of the family.

Maybe this metaphor isn’t perfect.

But the point is, there’s this constant activity of invention going on at the same time that the Schonbeks are preserving the amazing heritage of the crystal chandelier.

Whether you prefer to live in the past, the present or the future is up to you. I personally have a weakness for history. I love seeing a crystal chandelier over my kitchen table that King Louis XIV would recognize as cousin to the ones he possessed back in the seventeenth century.

Schonbek’s way of preserving the past is as creative as their approach to contemporary design. For example, when Schonbek revived cast arm chandeliers, they didn’t simply imitate an antique. La Scala is not an antique reproduction but rather a reinterpretation of historic models.  Reproductions can be somewhat stiff. Schonbek prefers to breathe new life into a long lost style.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Just think, the world is full of beautiful rooms lifting the spirits and enhancing the home lives of their owners. Merely looking at a photo of a truly beautiful room gives me a warm and happy feeling.

This is, of course, why there are so many home décor magazines.

You can go to the Beautiful Rooms section of this website for a pleasurable experience of vicarious decorating, right where you’re sitting. Every one of these rooms has the benefit of a Schonbek crystal chandelier.

Not all of these rooms are conventionally beautiful. Some people might raise their eyebrows at the bank vault made into a dining room. But that’s one of my favorites. The two custom Schonbek chandeliers more than make up for the somewhat chilly quality of so much metal.

At the other extreme, I always enjoy looking at homes that remind me of Italian villas, just because I’ve had such wonderful times traveling in that country. This particular style of aristocratic extravagance cries out for a crystal chandelier or two. The sharp facets of the crystal will pick up the reds and golds in the room to glorious effect.

I also love to admire a grand entryway that would swallow up my entire house and back yard. There’s a lot of fantasizing involved in decorating. You study impossibly gorgeous interiors and scale down the look for your own purposes.

Schonbek has brought the art of chandelier design to a wonderful place. You have a wide choice of mini chandeliers, monumental chandeliers and everything in between. Nobody has to get through life without a crystal chandelier, thanks to the fact that Schonbek has been so creative over the past 137 years. I’m not saying crystal chandeliers are for everyone, however. You probably need to be a serious romantic, or have a strong sense of drama, for this venerable form of lighting to speak to you.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

If you hesitate to take the plunge into the crystal chandelier lifestyle, consider starting small with a mini chandelier.

Just be advised that even a tiny crystal chandelier by Schonbek will be noticed and will cause comment. It may be small, but it’s not a low profile light source!

Schonbek has continued to design new mini chandeliers since their introduction of tiny crystal chandeliers in 2003, making minis a major category for Schonbek.

We just updated Mini Chandeliers on this website to include the newest Schonbek designs.

One that stands out for me is La Scala. This crystal chandelier design arose out of a commitment to magnificence. Ornate cast arms are designed to bear the visual weightiness of oversized crystal ornaments. And these beautiful handcut crystal pendants are hung with a lavish hand. Schonbek has captured the style beautifully in miniature with its new mini La Scala. I don’t know how they accomplished this exactly, but a tiny La Scala really does have the prima donna quality you see in a large-scale La Scala. It’s sure to give a small space new importance.

The Rose is one of Schonbek’s most fun new design families. And its tiniest size (13 inches in diameter) is probably my favorite. This new mini chandelier is rich in unusual antique-style crystal. Most fascinating to me are the long lobes of crystal that I sometimes call elongated raindrops, and sometimes elongated teardrops, depending on my mood. I’m still not satisfied with these descriptions. Rain and tears are melancholy images, and The Rose is an exceedingly cheerful little crystal chandelier. It does get more serious if you order it in a black finish and with a lot of black crystal, but even then, it grows chic not solemn.

The Rose comes in 32 varieties, which gives you an amazing number of choices. With most manufacturers, you’re lucky to have any color choices with a mini chandelier. But Schonbek tends to go overboard creatively, even when designing on a small scale.

A tiny gem that makes a wonderful addition to the Schonbek mini collection is New Orleans with Strass® Golden Teak crystal. This mini chandelier appears to be drenched in liquid gold of a deep dark color. The Strass® pendants have an irresistible iridescence. And Schonbek has glazed the  ornate crystal column parts and bobeches to pick up the gilded tonality of the pendants.