Alabaster has been carved for thousands of years, but its value in lighting comes down to one quality: light passes through it. Cut thin, the stone turns a bare bulb into a soft, warm glow, and its veining only really shows once the lamp is switched on.
No two pieces are alike. For anyone specifying a single room rather than a whole floor, that variation is the point. These five lamps use the stone in five different ways.
Lyra
Atelier Alain Ellouz, Paris. Alabaster, brass.
Part of the atelier's .édition collection of cordless table lamps, designed by its head designer Marion Biais-Sauvêtre. Lyra, which the designer likens to a small candy box, is finished with a gilt brass dimmer. Like the rest of the collection it needs no cable, so it can move from a desk to a dining table in the evening.
Athena
Atelier Alain Ellouz, Paris. Alabaster.
The spherical member of the same .édition family, and just as mobile: it can be picked up and carried to the other side of the house. The atelier has built its work around alabaster since it opened in Paris in 2005, and these small, portable pieces bring that experience into a private home.
Lucid
Michaël Verheyden for CTO Lighting. Honed alabaster, satin brass, bronze or oxidised silvered brass.
A hand-carved dome of honed alabaster on a metal band, inspired by old Parisian brasseries and snow globes. Some domes are almost white, others carry grey striations, so each one is different. The family includes table lamps in two sizes, pendants and wall lights, so one language can be carried through a whole project.
Rubik
Michaël Verheyden, Genk. Hand-brushed solid brass, white alabaster.
A block of hand-brushed solid brass topped with a slab of white alabaster. The geometry is strict; the stone softens it. Switched off it reads as an object on a shelf. Switched on, the top becomes the light source.
Median
Apparatus, New York. Alabaster, brass.
Translucent planes of alabaster intersected by a fluted brass form. Apparatus says the series refers to traditional Middle Eastern jewellery, seen through a futurist lens. Like all of the studio's pieces, it is finished and assembled by hand in its Brooklyn factory.