BOCCI x Mallett at Ely House // London Design Festival 2014.

For the recent London Design Festival 2014, Bocci collaborated with the antique dealer Mallett on an exhibition at the grand Ely House. Together, they unveiled two outstanding chandeliers specially designed for the magnificent stairwell and the front room of the gallery. The showcase provoked tension between old and new works, suggesting a counter-intuitive sense of time in which new objects seem older than the antiques.

Built in 1772, Ely House is a former bank, now home to an impressive array of antiques collected by Mallett. Set against this backdrop, Bocci created two unique chandeliers with the specific intention of blurring the boundary between antique and contemporary design, and suggesting continuity through colour and texture.

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Hanging within the central spiral staircase was a monumental chandelier made from 120 irregular glass bubbles coated in nickel – Bocci’s bespoke 57 series – suspended on aircraft wires.

57 series is an exploration of a production technique similar to the one used for making closed cell foam. The process involves trapping voids of air of different sizes and configurations within a glass matrix, resulting in a shape loosely referencing a rain cloud. These pockets of air remain invisible when the piece is off, but come alive to reveal an interior universe when the piece is illuminated. By virtue of the fabrication process, each piece made is completely unique from any other piece ever produced.

The second creation was displayed in the front room of the house, featuring Bocci’s 28 series. The installation could be seen from outside hanging above a white marble table, whose proportions and colour inspired the form of the chandelier. The 28d fixture stems from a complex glass blowing technique where air pressure is introduced into and then removed from a glass matrix, which is intermittently heated and then rapidly cooled. The result is a distorted spherical shape with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of which is made of opaque milk glass and houses a low voltage xenon or LED lamp.

The chandeliers will be on display at Mallett Ely House, 37 Dover Street, London until the end of the year.

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[Images courtesy of Bocci. Photography by Gwenael Lewis.]