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Citadel Collection
2025
Citadel is a series of four sculptural luminaires — including a table lamp, two pendants, two floor lamps, and two illuminated sculptures — inspired by East Asian palatial architecture and celestial mythology, forming a constellation of sacred towers, fortified citadels, and celestial bastions, invoking the legendary Heavenly Palace depicted in Chinese folklore - Journey to the West. Through tiered geometries and warm gradients of light, the collection blends myth and modernity, exploring the tension between permanence and transience, the sacred and the secular.


Citadel draws upon the rich tapestry of Chinese mythology, specifically the celestial realm known as the Heavenly Palace (天宫) — a divine citadel presided over by the Jade Emperor, ruler of the heavens. According to legend, this palace spans thirty-three levels and houses myriad deities, forming an ethereal cosmos of order, power, and hierarchy. The series reimagines this mythic landscape through seven illuminated objects, each envisioned as a sacred bastion suspended in the sky. Architectural references range from Osaka Castle to the Palace of Heavenly Purity in Beijing, whose tiered roofs and watchtower-like symmetry are abstracted into modernist geometries. These forms are distilled through a brutalist lens — simple volumes juxtaposed with delicately gridded structures. By fusing traditional East Asian motifs with minimalist visual language and Western sculptural austerity, Citadel Celestia offers a recontextualised reading of cultural heritage — one that mediates between ornamental pasts and a contemplative, distilled present.

Inspired by the mythic notion of thirty three-layered heavens, each piece features tiered, geometric “roofs” that echo the grandeur of historic East Asian citadels. These architectural references are distilled into a rhythmic play of mass and light: grid-like structures soften the illumination into hypnotic gradients, creating an ethereal, almost sacred presence. The interplay of light and shadow transforms each piece into a quiet monument — a totem of wonder that exists somewhere between the earthly and the divine.

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