Catenary Lamp
In mid-2021 we had the opportunity to work on a special project, special for the complexity, both for dimensions and for the shape and materials required to manufacture. It was a project that once completed, with the satisfaction of having done a fantastic job, he is one of those who make this profession love.
The project consisted of making a large lamp, 6m x 3m, in the lobby of the most prestigious shopping center that exists today in Europe, Canalejas Galleria located in the heart of Madrid.
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We could say that the term lamp is small because the whole set reached the category of artwork. It was a network of iron tubes forming a pillow-shaped net. These tubes intersected with each other and at the same time took the shape of the curve of a catenary so that the whole formed something similar to a semisphere. Each crossing of the tubes was topped by a small tube with a LED bulb covered by a crystal ball.
These blow glass balls were handcrafted exclusively for the lamp and, depending on the design of the lamp, were larger at the ends and reduced in size as they reached the center. To give light to each point of each crossing we had to pass the cables through each tube that made up the network. It was worth the effort since the result of the electrification was spectacular by using intelligent LEDs with which a multitude of artistic combinations of colors and movement of the lights programming by computer.
For us it was the biggest challenge that Boheme Design faced despite having made hotels of the highest level such as Four Season Surfside in Miami or Sheraton in Kuwait and to carry it out we started with a thorough study of how to face this challenge both at the level of art, planimetry and all the components that should make up this piece of art that had been assigned to us.
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We are based on the works of the great masters such as Antonio Gaudí and his catenary arches. For his study, Gaudí resorted to three-dimensional models that consisted of fixing on the ceiling a wooden board, in which he drew the plan of the building, and from the points of support columns and intersection of walls hung some strings from which he suspended bags with weight that gave the resulting catenary curve. This can be seen reflected in works such as La Pedrera, Casa Batlló, the Colegio de Santa Teresa, the Palacio Güell or the Sagrada Familia.
We used metal chains to apply Gaudí's studies. Once we had the entire perimeter of the lamp built we divided it according to the number of tubes of the network and from each end we hung a chain to the other end so that the resulting natural curve served as a guide for the curve of the tubes. Which was a great craftsmanship since each curve was different both in length and curvature.
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Another aspect to take into account was that on this set of curved tubes and crystal balls, the piece was crowned by an external structure in which 40 brass balls of 35 cm in diameter were housed. There being no such balls in the market due to the special size that was required, we had to resort to a centennial craft workshop in which we had to develop a special tooling and resort to the ancestral method of annealing on fire during each of the 6 mechanizations and subsequent repulsing of plate with a special mold in an artisanal way to get some balls of a noble material such as brass.
To top off the set, a special plate of high-gloss stainless steel glued on wood was installed on the ceiling.
The result could not be more impressive since, once placed, it multiplies by two the beauty and grandeur of the lamp.
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In short, it is a challenge overcome and as a result a work of art that everyone can see in the emblematic building of Edificio Canalejas
