Porcelain and Light
Antoni Arola designed Cirio in 2010, after looking at the hanging lamps of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul: not one lamp but many, clustered at different heights, filling the space with layered light. Since then, Cirio has kept on growing into a wide system with interchangeable shades for different types of light. But it all began with porcelain.
Made individually in a process that requires time and expert hands, Cirio’s porcelain shades are made by hand in Sargadelos, the renowned Galician ceramics company that was founded over two centuries ago.
Porcelain is a noble, delicate material. Getting the right sort of light requires a specific thickness. Polished on the outside and matte on the inside, although unnoticeable at just a glance, the matte interior ensures that the light does not rebound and is projected uniformly while the outer gloss finish enables light to be reflected, increasing its volume.
“We had to do a lot of tests with the Sargadelos development team to find the exact thickness that would give us the warmth of light we were looking for.”
Antoni Arola, Cirio Family’s author
When switched on, the light tinges the white porcelain golden. Porcelain holds light differently from glass: it absorbs some of it, softens what remains, and delivers something closer to candlelight than to illumination.
“Cirio was created to be a large circular lamp for public indoor spaces. But when we saw the effect of the porcelain with the LED light capsules, we realized that this combination could have many shapes and uses. That was when Cirio became a system with the lamps in bigger or smaller circles, in a line, or standalone – a rich, infinite show of compositions.”
Antoni Arola
Cirio is a system that provides customizable solutions for vertical lighting by combining structures, shades and light textures. The pendant lamp can be used alone or arranged in rows or clusters to illuminate larger areas, in forms such as the Chandelier, Cascada, Circular, Lineal, Oval or Múltiple.
