French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created a chandelier for a château in Marseille, France, that looks like an illuminated rope suspended from the ceiling.

Mathieu Lehanneur used contemporary lighting technology to create a reinterpretation of a chandelier that contrasts with the opulent interior of the eighteenth century building.

Glass tubes containing strips of LEDs puncture the underside of a mezzanine in the château's entrance hall and seem to hang down like loops of rope.

"It is not an object. It is not a light fitting. It is the light itself that seems to live and circulate in the entrance space, as if stitched onto the building itself," explains Lehanneur.

The newly renovated Château Borély opened earlier this month and is now home to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, de la Faïence et de la Mode (Museum of Decorative Arts, Earthenware and Fashion).

The opening is one of several events taking place this year in the city which is the European Capital of Culture 2013. Others include an installation of Konstantin Grcic's furniture in an apartment at Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse and a pavilion by Foster + Partners with a polished steel canopy that reflects passers by.

Mathieu Lehanneur recently designed a circular bar serving food with edible packaging and previous projects include a penthouse bar and nightclub with projectors and cables hanging from large black trees and a Romanesque church with a podium made from stacks of layered marble.

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Photography is by Vincent Duault

Here's some more information from the designer:

For the opening of Château Borély, now Musée des Arts Décoratifs, de la Faïence et de la Mode in Marseille, Mathieu Lehanneur has designed a monumental chandelier for the entrance hall. "This chandelier was conceived as a rope of light crossing the ceiling, only bands of light and glass are visible. It is not an object. It is not a light fitting. It is the light itself that seems to live and circulate in the entrance space, as if stitched onto the building itself," summarised the designer.

An impressive visually, on the boundary between light and special effects, since the conventional ceremonial light has been abandoned to pay tribute to the spirit of the place in a more modern fashion. Built in 1760, the Borély country house was a house for holidays and celebrations where the Borély family welcomed their friends. With this light, Mathieu Lehanneur regains the breath of fresh air that formerly blew over the Provençale house.

Materials: LEDs, tubes of borosilicate glass, luminous control system.
Production agency: Eva Albarran & Co