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Willowlamp creates two monumental ceiling installations for an award-winning hospitality group’s new restaurant
South African bespoke lighting design company Willowlamp, known for their majestic lighting creations, was commissioned by design firm the Rockwell Group to create a lighting installation for Cathédrale, a new restaurant that recently opened in Las Vegas. Cathédrale is the award-winning hospitality group Tao’s second restaurant, their flagship restaurant based in East Village, New York, shares the same name.
INSPIRED BY ART AND ROCK AND ROLL
Led by founder and creative director Adam Hoets, Willowlamp was tasked to interpret and reimage the design intent of the original restaurant for the Las Vegas addition’s ceiling. Hoets was specially inspired by the original wire-mesh ceiling installation created by Italian artist Eduardo Tresoldi.
The initial inspiration behind the flagship restaurant was the Fillmore East, a Yiddish theatre built in the 1920s which then became a concert hall dubbed “the Church of Rock and Roll” that hosted acts like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. With such a historically-rich inspiration, the flagship restaurant’s interior design conveys themes of theatre, glamour, church and rock.
CHAIN OF LIGHTS
This idea of a theatrical rock venue inside a glamorous church was another of the driving themes that informed Hoets’s design: “Because of the strong architectural references, in particular the forms within a cathedral, I set about studying the geometries, references and motifs used in the design of cathedrals,”he says. “I then extracted and developed the perfect architectonic language and framework for the project. This is why you feel as though you are immersed within an abstract construct of a cathedral.”
The dramatic and theatrical installation wows visitors on entry into the restaurant’s dining room, where the firstof the two beaded chain canopies hangs. It is made of 40 kilometres of chain and weighs almost 3,000kg. The second installation, which hovers above the bar, features 22,000 chains.
A SHINING TESTAMENT
While pieces like these would normally take up to two years from planning to completion, the Willowlamp team managed to accomplish the massive task in only eight months. The two mammoth installations are a testament to Hoets’s architectural background, which enabled the multifaceted designer to execute the creation of structures that rival the glorious cathedrals that informed them.
The installations in Cathédrale are one of Willowlamp’s many once-off creations that decorate residential and hospitality spaces across the globe.
