Anyone who’s ever lived in a metropolitan area knows the number one safety rule when walking around the inner city is to be acutely aware of your surroundings, but to keep that acuity to eye level and below. Muggers don’t usually jump from second story balconies, so there’s little need to look too far up. Looking up, mouth gaping, turning in all directions to marvel at the beautiful structures all around you, is a clear signal that you are a tourist – the perfect mark. Looking up, your attention is taken off the front pocket of your pants (where your money, credit card and ID should always be, wrapped in a rubber band to make it hard to pick your pocket without you feeling a tug). When I worked for a French Quarter hotel, this was the very first piece of advice I gave guests.
Still, it’s hard advice to swallow when you’re in a cool new place that has great architecture, an interesting skyline, and remarkable design – every bit of it well above eye level (did I mention I’m only 5’2”?). If you have a fascination with soaring ceilings and amazing lighting like I do, it’s virtually impossible to stick to the eye level rule. My first summer in Prague, I spent so much time in cathedrals I could have been escorted into one blindfolded and tell you exactly which one I was in based on nothing more than the chandeliers and ceiling adornments. In Cairo, I was so entranced by the enormous circular candlelit chandeliers inside the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the Citadel that I spent hours lying flat on my back on the sandy carpets in my green abaya shooting photo after photo upwards into the elaborately-tiled domes. Amsterdam is famous for it’s collections of medieval Dutch artwork (and infamous for its collections of smoky “coffeehouses”), but instead of marveling over the brush techniques used by Rembrandt or the vivid pigments van Eyck was able to produce, I spent a large number of my museum hours scanning the paintings and the buildings themselves for beautiful examples of artificial lighting.
What is it about an elaborate, twisted, turned, cast, molded, crystalled and suspended lamp that makes us gasp and declare it a masterpiece? Why do custom lighting artists spend so much time agonizing over reconciling the details of function, adornment, aesthetic appeal, and stability when the end product is meant to be hung well above the height at which one might even possibly run into it? Because it is part of the human condition to want to surround ourselves with gorgeous things, and while tastes differ from person to person, simple to excessive, we have always been drawn to the marriage of beauty and function, and the reconciliation of the most inextricable of design elements: art and light.
The very first examples of medieval European chandeliers were basic wooden cross-shaped structures with small pikes upon which to impale smoky tallow candles. The lighted cross would then be drawn up by a rope to an appropriate height and the rope tied off to a wall. Over time chandeliers became more and more elaborate, and more and more stable. Reflectors to maximize the spread of the light were constructed out of crystal, glass, silver, brass, and in cases of royalty, even gold. What began as two simple crossed beams of wood multiplied and morphed into curled and ornamented arms extending out sometimes in literally hundreds of directions from a central point. While chandeliers have come into and fallen out of vogue countless times over the centuries, we always seem to cycle back around to elevating them to the coveted positions of central focal points for our rooms. Even the advent of electricity could not entirely squash our love for chandeliers. Instead of fitting their works for the lowly tallow candle, chandelier makers cunningly crafted electric candles and worked wiring into the hollows of the magnificently molded arms of their masterpieces. As more forward-thinking individuals built homes wired for the power source which would change the course of human history forever, central mid-ceiling sets of electrical fittings were almost always worked into the plans of larger rooms to allow for the installation of chandeliers.
Modern chandeliers can and do take almost every shape imaginable, and are crafted from almost every material available. There are chandeliers made out of brushed steel, animal antlers, Plexiglas, even paper. They can be mass-produced through injection molding techniques, or they can be one of a kind, handmade works of art. They can be adorned with gems, or polished creek stones. Some pay homage to the past by holding candles for their lighting sources, while others make use of fiber optics to give an ethereal and futuristic glow. Some are simple industrial-looking clusters of bare wires and clear hanging light bulbs. Others are so heavily adorned with crystal that ceiling reinforcement is needed before they can be hung.
Regardless of your taste, regardless of whether you have an enormous home that needs ten chandeliers or a tiny apartment that can only handle one, there are millions to choose from. If you’re thinking about having one installed, choosing is the easy part. More complicated is the task of making sure your electrical wiring is suitable for the fixture you want to install. It pays, in this case, to have a professional electrician do the spec-ing for you. The last thing you want is to order a beautiful chandelier only to find that your wiring is completely inadequate for it. With a professional by your side you too can join the ranks of the great cathedrals of Europe and the remarkable mosques of the Middle East in creating focal point lighting just as beautiful as the rooms they will illuminate.
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