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Chandeliers: George Singer shines a light

22 February 2024
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Light fantastic


London-based George Singer has made a name for himself creating chandeliers of epic proportions and intricacy


T ime was, creating a statement development was relatively straightforward, especially for warehouse-style penthouses. A little exposed brick here, a zinc shelf there, something substantial and brightly coloured in a frame and all would be well.

Maybe once, but not any more. A key part of any prestigious build nowadays includes consideration of the matter of lighting. And that lighting can be a significant part of the cost, as the fashion is returning for huge, statement pieces.

We are talking about objects such as those being produced by lighting wünderkind, George Singer. The 34-year-old operates out of a studio in Shoreditch, east London, a district that is home to many artists and designers.

Singer is a graduate of the city’s St Martin’s College of Art. His boutique studio embraces innovative, cutting-edge techniques to breathe new life into what might be seen as a very traditional, aristocratic even, form of lighting – the chandelier.

Those techniques include 3D printing. Last year, Singer used this methodology to create his £42,000 work entitled Big Sexy Diamond, which was designed and made for the Strata Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery. It is fabulously intricate – the attention to detail is phenomenal – and involves more than 5,000 LEDs encased by gold anodised aluminium ‘ribs’. The 3D printing was crucial in building the intelligent joints.


A key part of any prestigious build nowadays includes consideration of the matter of lighting


Says Singer: ‘I had the idea years ago, but it was prohibitively expensive to cast the different joints in metal. Then I was walking past the iMakr 3D printing store in Clerkenwell [in London] and realised that the technology to realise my idea now existed.’

Singer was born in Taunton, Somerset, and grew up on Exmoor. Asked what turned him onto light and lighting in the first instance, he says: ‘When I was a child I distinctly remember the dappled sunlight through trees in Paris. I found it extremely beautiful and have been very interested in how light can be so influential and powerful. It’s often the most important part in determining the feeling of a space.

'My major project at college was a chandelier that recreated this dappled light effect and I was subsequently commissioned to design three large chandeliers for the famous Bluebird restaurant in Chelsea. I haven’t looked back since.’ That job was a pretty major coup for someone who was still a student at the time.

Following the Bluebird commission, Singer was asked to get involved with an Alpine project – a super-luxe ski chalet in Switzerland. Sir Norman Foster designed the blueprint for this and London-based interior design company Callender Howorth won the contract to ensure a luxurious finish. Mark Howorth, a partner at the latter company, knew of Singer’s work for the Bluebird restaurant and was quick to commission him to create an imperiously bespoke chandelier.

He attests to Singer’s determination to get every last detail right with the following anecdote: ‘When George turned up with the piece he told us that he’d found it really difficult to get the finish right so he tied it to the back of his Land Rover and drove around with it for a few miles. That created the distressed look he was after.’

It is unusual for Singer to be commissioned directly by a client, he says; it is more likely for him to be appointed by an agency or design studio working on behalf of a particular customer. This brings with it the challenge of working out what the client wants through a third party who is acting on their behalf.


‘He tied the piece to the back of his Land Rover and drove around with it for a few miles. That created the distressed look he was after.’


‘I ask myself questions such as what’s their taste? What’s their job? What’s their character? Are they fun and dynamic? Or are they very serious and professional, and want something very masculine and clinical to reflect that? I try to get under the skin of the client. Only then can I create something that I know they’re going to truly love.’

One thinks of a chandelier as something elegantly classic, to be found in stately homes and French châteaux, not necessarily something that is imbued with the zeitgeist and the spirit of the moment yet, in Singer’s hands, it is an art form that has little to do with tradition and, indeed, often inverts it.

He adds: ‘I can’t validate making a classical chandelier because the market is saturated with them and there’s no point in trying to churn out something that’s been done very well a million times before. So when people occasionally ask me to design something traditional I suggest it could be a classical form, but made using 3D-printing technology, fluid dynamics or 3D scans perhaps. I do like the aesthetic of traditional chandeliers, but it must be something exciting and contemporary.’

While accepting that he has been extremely successful, in a diffident and modest way, Singer is keen to emphasise that it is a success story not simply for him but for the UK. He adds: ‘First of all, my logo says: George Singer, bespoke chandelier, London. This logo appears on every page of my website and is always present on all my presentation material and drawings.’

He adds that he always stresses the fact that all his products are UK-made and how much he prides himself in using British manufacturing skills.

‘I love using UK factories to supply my materials and I carry out lots of factory visits throughout the year,’ he says. He also features the processes that are undertaken during the fabrication process of his chandeliers in all his videos.

These are used not only as promotional material, but to give clients and potential clients a behind-the-scenes look into the manufacturing process and an understanding of the degree of skill and expertise that goes into every aspect of the creation.

It is a powerful message, and one that puts pride of provenance at the heart of his work. Let there be light…

George Singer

Words: Staff

This article was originally published in Halcyon magazine in 2014


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