Penchant for Pendants: 7 New Lights You Want Hanging Around

From a customizable system that channels arachnids to a minimalist glass lamp that melds modern design with traditional technique, there’s something for everyone in this showcase of seven handsome pendant lights.

Studio Italia Design

BuzziSpace: BuzziLight Alhambra and Royal
The felt furnishings brand recently unveiled (at Design Shanghai) these luminaires sporting shades of perforated felt that help dampen sound while casting intriguing light patterns. The elaborate CNC-cut motifs in the shades are taken directly from the company’s BuzziFalls hanging-panel line: Alhambra, which is also the name of a Moorish palace in Spain, takes cues from Islamic geometries, while Royal sports a floral-like emblem. The felt wraps a powder-coated metal frame and comes in any BuzziFelt color with or without contrast stitch details. These pendants will make their US debut this June at NeoCon 2016.

BuzziSpace’s BuzziLight Alhambra

BuzziSpace’s BuzziLight Royal

FontanaArte: Pinecone
The lighting manufacturer has just unveiled its latest collaboration with architect and designer Paola Navone. Pinecone, available both as a pendant or table lamp, playfully yet abstractly recalls the shape of its namesake. The ancient technique of caged blown glass was used to realize its form: molten glass was blown within a metal cage to create a crisscrossing impression. The glass can be specified transparent or milky white acid etched.

FontanaArte

Foscarini: Caiigo
The morning mist that rises from the Venetian Lagoon inspired this Murano glass luminaire designed by Marco Zito. Caiigo, which translates as “fog” from Venetian dialect, marries old-world craftsmanship to modern design with a funnel-shaped mouth-blown glass diffuser that gradates from white on the bottom to clear up top. The master glassmaker ultimately determines the transition point from foggy to transparent, making each piece somewhat a one-off. Caiigo takes LED lamping.

Foscarini

ICRAVE Lighting: Ignis and Imber
The studio behind a plethora of well-known hospitality projects, New York City–based ICRAVE has teamed up with industrial design and manufacturing company Cerno to introduce these two new pendant lights. Both feature drum shades offered in a range of finishes from distressed brass to glossy white, but differences lie in the wood-frame details. Ignis’s three legs extend on the shade interior to fold out and support the bottom rim, while Imber’s shade looks as if it has slid down, its frame rising higher above the shade. Available with LED or incandescent lamping, both designs come in 17- or 24-inch-diameter sizes, and the wood can be specified in a variety of species from maple to walnut.

ICRAVE Lighting’s Ignis

ICRAVE Lighting’s Imber

Studio Italia Design: Spider
Designed to be grouped in clusters and to dangle from long leg-like cables, Spider looks as if it’s crawling across the ceiling. Each spherical diffuser — available in matte white, chrome, gold or rose gold — measures 4.7 inches (12 centimeters) in diameter and holds a 650-lumen LED bulb (not included). A discreet slot in the diffuser allows users to redirect the light aperture up to 90 degrees.

Studio Italia Design

Wästberg: w162 Dalston
Utilitarian lighting gets a swank makeover by London design studio Industrial Facility: the w162 Dalston takes its shape directly from pendants typically found throughout London warehouses. Its die-cast aluminum LED housing acts as a heat-sink and is finished in any RAL color, while its shade is rendered in glass or metal in a choice of more than a thousand finishes from high-gloss orange to matte black to transparent smoke.

Wästberg

Zero: Plane Lamps
This series by Swedish design studio Front updates the cage light by turning the flat-disk base of the “cage” itself into the light source. This flat lens comes in two sizes — 444 or 619 millimeters — and is clear when switched off; powered on, LED illumination evenly spreads across the lens to provide both up- and down-lighting. Meanwhile, the thin metal wires that form the cage come in four colors. A floor-standing torchiere model is also available.