Dezeen Magazine

Michael Anastassiades creates minimal lighting designs from glowing spheres

Milan 2015: illuminated globes balanced on delicate metal supports form lamps in London designer Michael Anastassiades' updated range.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Mobile Chandelier 9. Photograph by Hélène Binet

Anastassiades launched 15 new lighting designs in Milan last week, extending the collection of minimal mobile chandeliers and spherical lamps produced by his own brand.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Mobile Chandelier 9. Photograph by Hélène Binet, also main image

"We expanded the line into new configurations and new models, as well as new shapes that deviate away from the sphere," the Cypriot-born designer told Dezeen.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Mobile Chandelier 6

The five new designs in the Mobile Chandelier series use curved metal elements to support the illuminated balls, as an alternative to the straight sections used for the first five designs launched in 2008 and 2011.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Mobile Chandelier 7

"It's a diversion from the linear language that's already in the collection," Anastassiades said. "The previous models we have from one to five were quite linear."

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Bob Pendant

The pieces are carefully balanced to accommodate the different sizes and weights of the glass spheres, while maintaining the ability to be moved into different configurations.

"The idea is that you also have this perfectly balanced light fixture – something in perfect equilibrium," the designer said.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Bob Pendant

The Bob lights diverge from the spherical glass forms and are shaped to look like plumb bobs – weights hung from lengths of string to create vertical reference lines – to "make a reference to perfect alignment".

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Bob Wall Mounted

The Bob family includes pendants, as well as wall- and ceiling-mounted designs, with metal parts made in nickel-plated, black-patinated or raw-polished brass.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Happy Together Berry 10

In the Happy Together set, vertical rods in brass, nickel or black-patinated finishes carry groups of glass globes. These are arranged as pyramids or like bunches of grapes.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Happy Together Stack 4

"The idea is almost like an exercise in some sort of mathematical sequence, exploring how you position these things together," said Anastassiades. "It's quite a playful way to address light."

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Happy Together Stack 10

The designer has also referenced Carl Jacob Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld's 1924 MT8 lamp – known as the Bauhaus lamp – with a series of table lights.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Happy Together Stack 10

Using a similar sphere with its bottom cut off as a diffuser, Anastassiades created three new bases that support the lamp closer to the table surface.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Somewhere In The Middle

"I've borrowed the sphere and I've tried to represent the sphere in different configurations, with metal brackets that seem to simply support these elements," he said.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
Rest

Materials used in Anastassiades' 2015 collection are primarily glass and metals with various natural patinations.

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
To The Top

"I like to use materials that manage to say what they really are," the designer said. "I don't like to use materials that try to be like something else, like plastics that look like metals."

Michael Anastassiades collection for Euroluce
On My Mind

Anastassiades presented the designs at Euroluce, part of the Salone del Mobile furniture fair that concluded yesterday.