Form Plus Function

Want to add interest to a room, highlight your collectibles, and add ambient lighting:  try lighting your cabinets or – like here – add  illuminated niches.

One  way to take away from the harshness of the main light source in a dining area is to use additional  lighting around the edge of the  room.  This diminishes the strong contrasts between light and shadow in the room and makes it possible to dim  the main fixture, usually the pendant light or chandelier over the dining table to a comfortable, more intimate level.
Buffets and hutches  can be illuminated from within and light up your collections of china or treasured pieces .
Look for the color temperature of the bulbs you use for your display. In order to get the effect shown here you need to look for bulbs (lamps) close to 3000K (Kelvin.)
Most quality halogen and fluorescent lamps give you the color temperature as well as the  CRI (Color Rendering Index.) If there is a choice, look for a CRI as close to 100 as you can get.

My comments to this beautiful dining area: I love how the illuminated niches stand out and add architectural interest to the space. They fill the room with warmth and make the art pieces “pop”.
That said, I find that  the pendant light / chandelier looks kind of lost way above the table.  Is it even centered? – It looks like some kind of afterthought.  Lowering it would do a world of difference.

Rule of thumb for mounting height of a pendant of chandelier : 30″ above the dining table.

Love this time of the year! All over town the houses are decorated with luminarias, these humble little paper bags held in place with a scoop of sand and glowing from  votive candles. Of course a lot are now the fake kind (plastic bags on string lights), but come Christmas eve, entire neighborhoods are lined up with the flickering, warm glow of the real thing. That, mingled with the fragrant  scent of the smoke from pinon wood fires to me is Christmas in Santa Fe.

Artemide Aqua Sil Table Lamp

It’s obvious where Ross Lovegrove got his inspiration for the unique Aqua Sil series of lamps and ceiling lights he designed for Artemide.
Resembling ripples of water on a quiet lake  the highly reflective surface seems to react to the colors of the surroundings, picking up hues of colors around it.

The Aqua Sil table lamp is more than just a workhorse. It’s a work of art, a piece to fall in love with.

“Lovegrove’s specialty is in qualifying the present moment in design, rather than restyling the past, by employing new technologies with new materials to define new shapes.”

New York Times

Ingo Maurer’s latest installation,  Lacrime de Pescatore (Tears of the Fisherman),  is magical!
Layered nylon nets in three different sizes are laden with approximately 350 crystals shimmering  like drops of water. Installed across a ceiling, it creates that feeling that you are underwater, looking up at a fisherman’s glistening net.
I frst saw it in Munich in the Ingo Maurer showroom and was so charmed by it that I forgot to take photos !”
The light source itself is not even part of this unique “light fixture” but is  fixed separately to the wall and aimed to shine at the netting and crystals to illuminate them. You can see this clearly in the second photo.
As an added touch it is packaged it in a fun “to go”container. Ingo Maurer calls it a cash and carry chandelier!

Ingo Maurer Lacrime del Pescatore

Affordable Contemporary Lighting

At Form + Function we want to show that contemporary lighting can be affordable.We offer hundreds of wall sconces, pendant lights, outdoor lighting starting at under $50.

Click on the images to enter our online showroom for some great prices and discounts.

Form + Function is 25!

grafitti

Good graffiti intrigues me.

Stumbled across this one on a door in a small cobble-stoned side street in Sopron, Hungary.

Looks like a stenciled picture.

Who’s the guy?

Skygarden pendants in hotel lobby

Hotel Palazzo Zichy, Budapest sets the best stage possible to show off the beauty of these over-sized pendant lights designed by Marcel Wanders for FLOS.
They are gorgeous!!!
I had seen them in showrooms, but this was the first time up close and personal.  The combination of the  liquid-paint black exterior and the fabulously  decorated matte plaster interior was stunning. Especially beautiful was the manner the light bulb is concealed.

This hotel, where we were fortunate to spend four nights was such a treat for the eye: a beautifully restored private Palazzo that must have been practically gutted then restored lovingly with attention to every detail.
Great, great lights everywhere. I was in heaven and couldn’t stop taking photos.
It is located really conveniently close to everything. We walked from  there through streets lined with small outdoor cafes and restaurants to the center of town, the Danube river and across the bridge to the castle.

Budapest is a beautiful city, full of history and much more vibrant than I had expected.  This will definitely not be our last visit! – and we know where to stay! It was not only the lights and the architecture that intrigued me, but the service, which was so warm and friendly.

Hotel Palazzo Zichy

Skygarden from FLOS

Rose wrapped in Barbed Wire

We arrived in Sopron, Hungary two days after the 20th anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic.
This small open-air exhibit of   that historic peace demonstration brought back a lot of memories from our five years living in West Berlin, the wall, the watch towers, guards etc. – and the thrill of seeing the iron curtain fall. This exhibit of freedom gave me goosebumps!

I’m embarrassed to confess my history illiteracy.  I was not even aware that the beautiful little town of Sopron, where we had planned to spend a week played such an important part in the history of the fall of the Iron Curtain.
I was just strolling around town on my first day, taking in the sights when I came upon this mural inside an iron gate.

The passionate kiss between Breznyev and Honecker drew me closer, well especially the mural next to it and then I realized where I was. This was THE SPOT! The very place where people restless, tired of 60 years of looking at each other across a fence heard about something unique happening, word spread – and everybody gathered around full of hope mixed with scepticism and frustration

In a symbolic gesture agreed to by Austria and Hungary, a border gate was to be opened for three hours on August 19th 1989. Austria’s foreign minister Alois Mock and his Hungarian colleague Gyula Horn together cut through the border fence.

The organisers of the peace demonstration “Pan-European Picnic” had distributed pamphlets advertising the event as a   gigantic picnic and more than 600 East Germans gathered close to Sopron not ready to believe what was about to happen. When it did they seized this opportunity to flee into the west, some leaving their beloved Trabants behind. (One is at display at this open-air memorial)
The Hungarian border guards had orders to shoot anyone who attempted to cross the border, but they chose not to intervene.
True heroes in my eyes!

Pan European Picnic Memorial

Artemide Pipe Suspension

The Artemide Pipe suspension lamp is a pendant with a twist!

I shot this photo last week in the bar of Hotel Palazzo Zichy, Budapest.
I’d seen it before, but had forgotten how unique and interesting it is – and big! It’s not a dainty flexible pendant, but for sure makes a statement!

Not only good looking, this versatile pendant is very functional.
Pipe consists of a dark light optic contained in a single steel pipe structure which is extremely flexible and may be oriented in any direction. It is  covered with a clear platinum-plated silicone sheath terminating in a conical diffuser. This conical head has   micro-perforations, which  give off fine, evocative points of light as an added accent.

In 2004 Europe’s most prestigeous design award, the Compasso d’Oro, went to the Pipe lamp.
The Pipe was designed for Artemide by two of the world’s top architects : Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.  Later they went on to build the spectacular Olympic Stadium in Beijing “Bird’s Nest”.

Artemide Pipe Suspension