Lighting: Home of Lighting Designer Marjorie Skouras

Apartment Therapy offered us a peek into what seemed like a veritable menagerie of feathers, taxidermy specimens and yes, lighting this month in this house tour of Marjorie Skouras home.

What amused me further amidst all the quixotic artefacts Skouras had in her home was a little bit of Chinese-inspired lighting with a lamp base with a countenance similar to the Chinese deity – Guanyin.

 

Guanyin is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World".
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanyin

In Chinese Buddhism, Guan Yim/ Guan Yin/Kuan Yim/ Kuan Yin is synonymous with the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, the pinnacle of mercy, compassion, kindness and love.
- http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Chinese_Customs/Guan_Yin.htm

There is a strange clash of western, eastern religious and domestic artefacts over here which creates a visual dissonance and interest.

But if I were to choose, I would say my favourite lights would be Skouras’ Honeycomb Lanterns. I love the swirling effect on the glass and the hexagon light reflections that bloom on the ceiling. Skouras has this in different glass options.

  

More pictures of Marjorie Skouras’ lights and chandeliers in-situ at http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/a-look-inside-the-home-of-lighting-designer-marjorie-skourashouse-tour-169672

If you share the same aesthetics but have economy concerns, Urban Outfitters does have similar alternatives (some more, some less similar) at more affordable prices. But just doesn’t seem to beat the real thing when you are looking at the finishing, shape and details.

Marjorie Skouras lights vs UO lights

  

Like this article? See other Chinese-figurine/deity infused lighting in Lighting: The Dramatic Whiteness of Exploding Dinner Ware

Lighting: The Dramatic Whiteness of Exploding Dinner Ware

In this showpiece home of a 1848 Gramercy Park townhouse in New York City (which by the way lights up like an industrial-inspired lamp among all the other brick walls around it doesn’t it?), …

… a white lamp caught my eye amongst all that flashiness. And no, you can’t see it through the window here. Honestly, how do you get any privacy in this house??

Porca Miseria

This is the first time I’ve come across Ingo Maurer's iconic 1994 lamp 'Porca Miseria'. Named after a cuss word AND definitely meant for the dining table, this lamp certainly adds an instant tempestuous dynamism to an otherwise very white, very still environment.

The close up reveals more surprise. The lamp comprises broken porcelain dining ware and cutlery!

Where does "Porca Miseria" come from?

It was when we went to Milan once, for the famous Salone del Mobile [furniture fair]. And I found too many designs there slick and design-conscious. "Porca Miseria" is partly a kind of revolt against that tendency. I'm also an admirer of slow-motion explosions, like in the film by Antonioni called "Zabriskie Point,"where he blew up a castle in slow motion.

When I first showed it in Milan, I called the lamp "Zabriskie Point." But then the first few Italians came, and — since no one had seen this ever before — said, "Porca miseria!" which is a kind of a cuss: "What bad luck!" So I immediately changed the name to "Porca Miseria."

We produce it in a limited number — we do only 10 a year. Believe it or not, it takes four people almost five days. We buy porcelain plates at a regular shop. First, we smash them: I have one, I drop it; or I take a hammer to it. It looks very much at random — and it is, maybe 50 or 60 percent. The rest is in a way constructed: There's a bit of calculation of how big I want to have the piece I want to use.

Chance rules our life, much more than intention.
via http://www.bookofjoe.com/2007/11/the-origin-of-i.html

Trivia

• A 2009 post on http://morningglory.onsugar.com/ placed the cost of the customised lamp at $67,500.
• There are Chinese porcelain-versions of the lamp from Ingo Maurer, the Porca China and the L’Eclat Joyeu.

 Porca China

“Porca China” (china as in porcelain) is a suspended lamp made of fragments of Chinese white porcelain statues and chopsticks fastened around a light source. Like the Porca Miseria, it gives the viewer the sensation of a sudden explosion crystallized in the moment of its happening. It was put up for auction in 2005. Its auction price began at 45,000 euro.
via http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/porca-china-the-best-bid-wins/

L’Eclat Joyeu

Maurer used pieces of white European and coloured Chinese porcelain (acquired during a journey in China), which he teamed with chopsticks and metal to explosive effect. He describes the product as: ‘An encouragement to keep calm and serene in difficult times, an appeal not to stagnate in one’s habits or just a terrific suspension lamp providing excellent light.’
via http://www.idfxmagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=4741

More pictures of the Porca Miseria in the Gramercy Park townhouse on Freshome. One of the bedrooms also spot ceiling lights that reminded me of the Torn Light by Billy May.

Images from
- http://www.novamob.fr/fr/887.html
- http://marcosns.tumblr.com/
- http://www.lifestylenavigator.de/?p=116