Light My Way, Stranger
MAK Center Benefit · November 2012
Lux Mechanica: A Candelabra for Schindler
In the fall of 2012, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture staged "Light My Way, Stranger," a benefit exhibition and silent auction held at Rudolph Schindler's Fitzpatrick-Leland House, the 1936 residence perched where Laurel Canyon Boulevard meets Mulholland Drive. The MAK Center commissioned 41 architects and artists to each design a light fixture, with proceeds supporting the Center's programming and its stewardship of the three Schindler dwellings in its care. Schindler treated light as a building material, integrating fixtures directly into window heads and room corners, and the brief asked each contributor to answer that legacy with a working luminaire of their own.
Architect Duncan Nicholson answered with the oldest luminaire there is. His entry, an aluminum candelabra stand titled Lux Mechanica, holds no bulb, no cord, no diode. Its movable parts allow the candles to be rearranged at will, so the composition of light is never fixed. In a field of 3D-printed shades and neon signage, Nicholson designed an instrument, not an object: the owner completes the piece each time it is lit. Wallpaper* documented the work by name in its coverage of the auction, with the photograph credited to Nicholson himself.
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| Lux Mechanica photographed at the Schindler House, Kings Road |
The candelabra was fabricated by Ramsey Daham of Breakform Design, the El Segundo metalwork and fabrication firm whose custom stainless steel windows, doors, and furniture have been central to the Sheats-Goldstein Residence for decades. It would not be the last time this pairing produced an object for a MAK Center benefit: one year later, Nicholson and Breakform delivered the mirror-polished trophy for the inaugural MAK Games, played on the Infinity Court that Nicholson designed at the Goldstein Residence. Same architect, same fabricator, same cause, one continuous line of work.
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| Lux Mechanica during construction at the Breakform Design shop |
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