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“1 crystal + 1 low energy LED light + a faceted paper shade = AMPLIFY” asserted Yves Béhar at this year’s Swarovski Crystal Palace. Always driving accessibility and sustainability in his designs, Béhar’s equation works to maximise the magical rainbow effect of crystals with minimal materials. Even the paper’s recycled. In contrast to the rest of the Swarovski collection, AMPLIFY will soon be flat-packed and available for purchase by all.
Tokujin Yoshioka, Gwenaël Nicolas, Vincent van Duysen and Rogier van der Heide were also commissioned to interpret the beauty of Swarovski crystal for the Swarovski Crystal Palace.
Yoshioka created a two-piece installation. A 1m globe encrusted with 10 000 Swarovski crystals and lit from within by 600 LEDs was contrasted by a second globe suspended in a vast tank of water, on which crystals grew naturally. “What is important to me is not just designing another sculpture with crystal, but to create a star which shines in the viewer’s heart,” Yoshioka explained.
”I wanted to imagine a space with no gravity,” Nicolas commented about his two pieces. Such suspension was created by floating small crystal sculptures lit by a battery-powered LED inside large, free-floating, helium-filled, transparent balloons. A separate design consisted of a 10m-long string of crystals incorporating LED lighting that was programmed to set off "sparks" that jumped along the length of the rope.
Van Duysen created a versatile glowing "beam" encrusted with Swarovski crystals and Rogier van der Heide created a colour-changing cloud of crystals over a floor of black tulips.
