For her Crystal Ball Lamps, Marta de la Rica selects antique marbled opaline globes, shaped by traditional mouth-blown glass techniques. Each piece is entirely unique, chosen in various shades according to her mood—or the mood one wishes to bring to the living room.
As a child, the interior designer would tag along with her father, an avid collector, to flea markets, antique fairs, and auction houses—so much so that family holidays were often mapped around historic markets. This trained her eye, a sensibility she has brought to her Madrid studio since 2014, where antiques, craftsmanship, and contemporary creations converse.
The Crystal Ball Lamp was born of exactly this spirit. During a journey to the Netherlands, Marta de la Rica unearthed a series of vintage, marbled opaline spheres. She brought them home and set out to transform them into lighting, embracing their natural variations rather than trying to make them uniform. Individually selected, each globe meets a block of marble to become an enigmatic, colored crystal ball—somewhere between a found object and a domestic sculpture.
The process even gave birth to a second lamp, almost by accident. While fabricating the Crystal Ball lamps, an artisan momentarily set one of the spheres down on a rough piece of limestone. Marta instantly noticed the contrast between the delicate opaline and the raw, rugged stone: the Brutalist Lamp was born. Today, the studio describes it as a piece literally "sculpted by chance."
Taste
Madrid · Marta de la Rica · Antique opaline · Marbled glass · Dutch finds · Verre soufflé · Brocantes · Objets trouvés · Coloured light · Spanish interiors
