D6| Saturday/Sunday, September 7 - 8, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**
it,” said Mr. Quinn.
Another way to distance a
kitchen from the three-in-a-
row setup that unimaginative
condo developers rely on:
Hang the fixtures at varying
heights. “This gives a room
more dimension. The eye is
drawn to different levels,
which makes the space look
more 3-D,” said New York de-
signer Marina Hanisch.
Nonidentical pendant col-
lections come in many hues,
shapes, styles and finishes.
Curiousa & Curiousa’s open-
ended Classic glass pendants
(1, at right) come in five
shapes and 23 jewellike col-
ors. Said their British de-
signer, Esther Patterson,
“They hit the note of modern
but are reflective of vintage
and history.” The iconic chan-
deliers of La Scala in Milan
and Moscow’s Bolshoi The-
atre inspired the Neverending
Glory Czech-crystal pendants
for Lasvit (4). “Every single
shape is different, but to-gether you see the story be-
hind the whole collection,”
said co-designer Jan Plecháč.
Earthy pendants by cera-
mist Heather Levine—one
bulbous, one cloche-shaped—
were installed over white
concrete counters and hick-
ory-wood cabinetry in a
home in Los Angeles. “It’s
certainly less formal—a hom-
ier approach that perhaps
feels a little warmer,” said
Cayley Lambur, who with Lu-
cia Bartholomew makes up
Electric Bowery, in Venice
Beach, Calif. Ms. Lambur
noted that the house’s re-
laxed modernist lines didn’t
require staid symmetry.
LED technology enables
the design of the aptly
named SLAB lights designed
by Lukas Peet, nearly flat
acrylic rectangles swathed in
a choice of cork or colored-
wool felt, both sound-dead-
ening. In a townhouse in
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Ta-
mara Eaton suspended three
sizes of the lights in yellow,
green and gray, the smallest
at right angles to the larger.
“Cabinetry can be very mo-
notonous, right?” the New
York designer said. “Lighting
is one of the very few things
in a kitchen that can bring
sculpture.”
Of course, you can mix up
pendants yourself: Zero in
on one style but buy a few
companionable colors, or
mingle similar designs from
one brand. If you’ve got a
designer’s help, you might
even consider three very dif-
ferent fixtures that have
some element in common.
Orlando designer John Mc-
Clain had nearly convinced a
client to install three pen-
dants that riff on circular
forms in three different ma-
terials—gray concrete, glass,
and unlacquered brass—over
their modern kitchen. “They
chickened out at the last sec-
ond and went with a simple
three or four pendants,
matching, over the island.
Yawn, yawn, yawn,” said the
dispirited Mr. McClain.
To do a mélange success-
fully, Mr. Quinn recommends
hanging quite a gang of
lights. “If you have more than
two, you start to see, ‘Oh, this
is intentional,’” he said. And
because a mix can grab atten-
tion, follow the rules for stan-
dard installation extra-reli-
giously. Keep dangling lights
away from exposed ceiling
beams to limit nettlesome
shadows. And if your ceiling
is less than 8 feet high, find a
non-pendant solution.
But if all systems are go,
be bold, said Mr. Quinn. “I al-
ways advise clients to go a lit-
tle wild with lighting, because
it is one of the easiest things
to change.”T
ASKED WITH re-
suscitating the
cookspace of a
late-1980s English
Tudor near India-
napolis, Tom Stringer found
standard-issue pendant light-
ing too dim—aesthetically
speaking. “We do a lot of mul-
tiples over islands, and after a
while you get bored of three
or four of the same thing,” the
Chicago designer said. The
antidote: handblown topaz
glass fixtures by John Pomp
Studios in sundry shapes. The
unexpected array dangles a
note of art-studio cool over
the space, which otherwise
features quartz countertops,
white cabinetry and a pair of
buttoned-up Jacobean stools.
In the last two years, Mr.
Stringer has installed four ex-
amples of subtly mismatched
pendant lighting—typically
fixtures of the same color
family but in different shapes.
BYKATHRYNO’SHEA-EVANS
DESIGN & DECORATING
1234EVOLUTION
Despite its simple ‘X’ base,
the traditional Savonarola
chair has a certain grandeur.
Topped with bronze finials,
the wrought iron arms of this
19th-century example seem
to present the sitter to an
audience. (Its ancient ante-
cedent, known as a curule
chair, was in fact reserved for
Roman officials.) Ironically, its
name recalls Fra Girolamo
Savonarola, a 15th-century
Dominican friar who cam-
paigned against excess, initi-
ating the “bonfire of the vani-
ties,” where luxuries, ranging
from books to tapestries,
were burned. His own simpler
wooden version sits in the
Museo di San Marco in Flor-
ence. Savonarola Curule
Chair, $2,750, 1stdibs.comA Throne Made Monastic
The regal Savonarola chair gets an ascetic
rethink for the modern eraA new minimalist rif on the
Savonarola chair adheres to
its namesake’s philosophy. Its
frame is made of humble
matte black steel, while the
arm rests and seat are indus-
trial rubber enlivened with
texture. The seat’s designer,
Maurizio Peregalli of Italian
firm Zeus, asserts that his
small-batch, handmade
stools exemplify the “Francis-
canism” the studio extols.
Even the X base, an inessen-
tial reference to its forebears’
foldability, became four
straight legs. Through an in-
terpreter he stated, “The peo-
ple to whom this project is
destined are sober, ill-predis-
posed to luxury but elegant.”
Savonarola Chair #1, $450,
artemest.comTHEN NOWStrike a Mismatch
Must the pendant lights over your kitchen island be
identical? The fashionable answer is: NoJORGE GERA (ROOM)
DIVERSE COURT Chicago
designer Tom Stringer
hung pendants of one
color but three shapes.The world of kitchen design
is wearying of rote choices.
“Everything right now is
about eclecticism—making
the space your own,” said
Matthew Quinn, author of
“Quintessential Kitchens and
Spaces: Volume Two” ( Parrish
Press ). In a black and white
kitchen, the Atlanta designer
hung assorted shapes of Tom
Dixon’s Beat pendants, which
are matte black with warm
brass interiors. Using group-
ings of slightly divergent pen-
dants is “an opportunity to
break the rule but not shatter51. Classic Pendants, from $379 each,
curiousa.co.uk ; 2. SLAB Pendants, from $415
each, andlight.ca ; 3. Doo-Wop Pendants, $920 each,
ylighting.com ; 4. Neverending Glory Pendants,
from $1,890 each, luminaire.com ; 5. Aplomb
Pendants, from $530 each, lumens.com.
Inset: Bonbon Shade and Cord Assembly,
from $535 each, hay.com
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