Asteria: A Modern, Minimalist Take on the Chandelier

Italian designers Alberto and Francesco Meda re-think the chandelier. The father-and-son duo used LED-laden aluminum extrusions to minimize the form, replacing the traditional tiers with gestural branches. Asteria reinterprets the traditional multi-arm chandelier by paring it back to its essentials. The heart of the design is the arm: a curved profile of extruded aluminium with a triangular section that carries the light source along its upper edge. A semi-transparent screen directs light upward for a soft ambient glow while tracing a thin luminous line down each arm, so the fixture appears to float in space. A recessed LED spot at the base adds a focused beam of downward light, ideal over a table, and the arms and spot can be dimmed separately to shift a room’s atmosphere. Asteria comes as a single-level, six-arm design in three sizes, with a special eighteen-arm Multi version across three staggered levels available on request. It is offered in two finishes, dark red and titanium. The lamp is in production by Foscarini.