Unusual Wall Light Captured on Video

The first of our new LED low voltage wall lights has now been released as a video and can be seen in the new Lighting section of this site or by visiting our gallery at Youtube.

We begin our venture into the artistic wall light scene with our unusual wall sconce named in honor of the Mother of Dragons and the dragon eggs she rescues in “Game of Thrones”.

We have chosen to cast this piece in stainless steel, a medium reminiscent of armor and chain mail and that is fittingly flame proof. The cap of the sconce is a fusion of  medieval themes with its turreted tower peak  and diamond shaped shields. By contrast the body of the sconce is organic and fluid with molten shapes reminiscent of much of the work of Gaudi and other masters of the Art Nouveau era.

See Video Gallery

The Dragon Egg sconce is available  in stainless steel or in bronze and is currently being released with a single color, red, blue, green or white LED. We do plan to make this available as a color changing wall light so stay tuned.

The advent of low voltage LED’s has motivated us to enter the wall lighting market and we look forward to helping designers with their residential and hospitality needs.

We would again like to extend our thanks to Jeff Jenkins of www.onefoxtwofox.com for making this video possible.

Summer has arrived and we have vacation plans

The summer solstice arrived at exactly  9:39 a.m. on June 21, 2015 marking the official beginning of summer for those of us who reside in the Northern Hemisphere.  Both the summer and winter solstice have historically been celebrated by ancient civilizations, including one of the oldest celebrations that took place in Stonehenge located in our native England.  But for many people, including ourselves, it is a signal that it is time for a vacation!

While our travel dates are not exactly a summer vacation, we will be traveling to Istanbul for one week in late September and can hardly wait!  I am trying my best not to think about it too much so I can stay focused on work.

This trip is, in part, inspired by our visit to Granada last year and the exposure to Moorish architecture along with the incredible work of famed architect Antoni Gaudi; all of which whetted our appetite to discover other architectural treasures. Needless to say we will be taking in the phenomenal architecture Istanbul has to offer and, like every good traveller, sampling the food.

Where are your summer vacation plans taking you?

To view the entire collection of architectural hardware at Martin Pierce, please visit our site at www.martinpierce.com.

Designers can visit the showroom located at:

5433 W. Washington Blvd.

Los Angeles, Ca  90016

323 939 5929

Closer to home we will be going up to Point Reyes in July.

Montaner treasures in Barcelona

The first few weeks of October found us experiencing the vacation of a lifetime in Spain with the first half of this remarkable trip spent in Barcelona. We traveled to Barcelona in homage to architect Antoni Gaudi who's modernist art nouveau style continues to inspire and humble Martin. However, before we even saw our first Gaudi treasure we stumbled upon the work of another key architect in Catalan Modernisme,  Domenechi Montaner (1850-1923)

His Palau de la Musica Catalana  was located near where we stayed and we found it by chance. We  were so astounded by the exterior that we signed up for the guided tour and took this video during that visit.

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The building is one of amazing color, texture and light. Decorated with natural themes often in the  form of applied ceramic and glass flowers and leaves, the style is so intense with color, movement and varied mediums that it is  almost like being inside a kaleidoscope.  I fear the impact must be overwhelming to those with subtle palettes. If one looks at the tiered ceramic layers that lead to the stained glass roof one is reminded of the Victorian décor that we recently saw at the Simpson house in Santa Barbara.

Montaner’s style, while not as unrestrained as Gaudi, certainly shares Guadi’s sense of fun and sets both of their works apart from that of their contemporaries.

The Palau was built between 1905 and 1908 but more recently the façade has been extended to include a Petite Palau in 2004. The new addition continues Montaner’s theme of nature but with the clever use of red brick which, ironically, was being built during the same period when Martin began designing his Hedgerow collection.  I say this is ironic as both make reference to tree canopies; in Martin Pierce’s case it is the canopy that forms the grip for the passageway door handle.

Hedgerow Collection from Martin Pierce Hardware