Bechara Maalouf displays lamps informed by Lebanese window guards
New York fashion retailer Komune has displayed laser-cut metal lamps on recycled-wood bases by local designer Bechara Maalouf in a slim gallery during NYC design week, informed by the intricate window guards of Maalouf's family home in Lebanon.
The What Still Holds show is an exploration and meditation on Maalouf's relationship to Lebanon, as he grew up in the US, but has a family home in Kfertay, which he regularly visits.
The show at the gallery space directly next to Komune's New York flagship encompasses three lamps, a mirror created by Maalouf in 2025, a triptych being shown for the first time and a small collection of personal knick-knacks on a wooden shelf.
The three lamps are each wrapped in a different lattice pattern informed by the bright red wrought iron gates of the house in Kfertay. They are all mounted on blocks of wood that came from buildings around the Lower East Side, which Maalouf sourced from a local lumber yard.
The designer also paired the lamps with small, magnetic flies that can be placed in various positions around the pieces and can also be used to pin a small item, like a flower.
Maalouf told Dezeen he's been exploring both his longing and disconnection from his ancestral home through his work for some time. He said that he wanted to display life and beauty in Lebanon, despite the ongoing war and Israel's ground invasion of the country.
"I don't want to paint Lebanon as a war zone in my own head, or communicate that necessarily," he told Dezeen. "I was there last summer, and things are still moving."
"All these things are still holding strong. The windows are still there, they're still beautiful, and the house is in an orchard, and the fruit is still growing, and the flies are still buzzing around. I think that was an important sentiment for me to stay attached to."
Like Maalouf's previous work, the pieces are primarily made of laser-cut metal, although for this show, he told Dezeen he wanted to reconnect with wood from earlier days working in a cabinet shop.
He also used a magnetic stainless steel alloy for the first time instead of the usual aluminium, which allowed him to work with steel and also stick the flies to the lamps.
"You can pull them off and put them back on in a different spot, you can bend the legs, and you can put it on the corner or put it on the side," he said. "That added a really kind of cute level of interaction to me."
The designer said he also experimented with hand-bending the tabs that run down the perimeter of the lamps with the encouragement of Komune creative director Brandon Fogarty, a process that was both meditative and painstaking.
"The prongs are an attempt for me to add my hand into the metal work, because they're all CNC laser cut pieces," he said. "I wanted the ability to manipulate the form a little more after I received the parts."
The triptych also contains similar, hand-bent borders which surround planes of wood. Inside, pixel-like motifs represent a church in Kfertay, a spiral seen on a pita press, and a cypress tree.
Each tiny square is filled with a fragment of a 5,000 Lebanese lira note, both for its beauty and as a representative of an economic crash the country recently experienced that severely depreciated the currency.
Another similar wall sconce by Maalouf is located inside the Komune store next door. This sparked the more extensive commission for NYC Design Week.
With the help of Maalouf, Fogarty cleared out a former office space and converted it into the temporary gallery for the What Still Holds show. While cleaning, they uncovered a small sink and an ideal space to place Maalouf's mirror, which is also covered in ornate metallic screens.
The Komune team is considering different options for the space after the show, one of which may be a tiny tailor shop run by a Komune sales associate turned in-store seamstress.
Maalouf was also featured in the Shine lighting exhibit put on by NYCxDesign and Design Milk.
Dezeen rounded up eleven design collections launched during New York's annual design fest in the face of a shifting local design market, which may be further transformed by the ICFF moving the week's major commercial fair to the fall.
What Still Holds is on show from 15 May - 8 June at 92 Orchard in the Lower East Side. For more city-wide design exhibitions and showcases around the world, visit Dezeen Events Guide.
The post Bechara Maalouf displays lamps informed by Lebanese window guards appeared first on Dezeen.
