Geometry in balance #Michael Anastassiades

Michael Anastassiades, born in Cyprus but living in London, cites among his first references the architect Neoptolemos Michaelides, one of the main representatives of modern architecture in Cyprus. Although Anastassiades studied industrial engineering before specializing in Product Design, his lamps have some definite architectural quality. Based on the combination of elementary shapes, mainly linear elements and spheres, there is always a search for balance in them that adds an almost playful element to their formal seriousness, such as Calder’s circus mobiles, which are the immediate reference to the Mobile Chandelier series. The paradoxical combination of strict geometry and apparent random is also behind the table lamp Copycat or mirrors such as Phase Four and Half Moon.

When designing a light, I think it’s important to acknowledge that it can never be an isolated object but one that interacts with its environment Michael Anastassiades.

His references are even more clearly architectural in the Vertigo lamp, made up of only two perpendicular pieces that deliberately refer to the construction process of the great 1930s skyscrapers and their large metal beams floating across the New York skyline. The elements that define the landscape, specifically the strings of the electricity network, are also at the origin of the String Lights series. Its wiring allows the user to configure and define the architectural character of the space in which it is installed.

The Coordinates series, a three-dimensional grid in golden aluminum that allows different configurations, was initially created as part of the interior design of the legendary Four Seasons restaurant. Although it was created for its new location, both the lamp by Anastassiades and the interior design by Isay Weinfield were based on the original Four Seasons, with Mies van der Rohe’s architecture, Philip Johnson’s interior design and Richard Lippold’s hanging sculpture.