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Philosophy

Luminaire has been creating environments that affect people’s lives since 1974.

Luminaire is more than a furniture showroom. It is an interactive design research center, a playground for the soul, an esplanade for discovery. More than anything else, however, Luminaire is a resource focused on creating environments that affect people’s lives. The component parts of this unifying philosophy – the necessity of design education, the desire for limitless inspiration and the requirement for impeccably detailed execution – affect every item in our collection and reflect our dedication to making good design accessible to all.

Luminaire is more than a furniture showroom.

Luminaire’s showrooms have a purpose well beyond the products and designers they feature. They aren’t about what’s on display, but the relationships between everything inside them—the connection between a room, the objects placed within them, the people that move through these spaces, and how that space can reflect and redirect that visceral energy.

Such a philosophy has allowed Luminaire to evolve beyond the walls of a showroom into a laboratory for contemporary design. One that inspires and also incites curiosity. Through curated exhibitions, open-forum lectures and educational programming, the brand has forged connections between design enthusiasts and designers, architects and scholars. Those who are reshaping not only our environments but how we feel as we move through them. These events represent a chance to give back to the larger community, sparking unexpected interactions that question the place and purpose of design.

The meticulous and methodical attention to quality and detail always supports the same goal: creating a personalized and enduring link between the name Luminaire and the intellectual and emotional life of their clients.

Design is the third skin. The first is our human skin, the second is our clothing, and the third skin is the bubble that surrounds us.

As we interact with good design, our bubble expands allowing us to carry its principles out into the world, redefining how we occupy and what we do in that space. Introducing this notion of the “third skin” helped customers understand they weren’t simply acquiring a design piece, but more so a design sensibility. Over time, this becomes a natural process. It seeps into everything you look at, even the most seemingly insignificant, unrelated thing like an email is an experiment in how space is used.

Democratizing
design.

The belief that good design should be accessible to all is central to the Luminaire story. By pioneering the practice of democratizing design, the company has advanced its mission to interpret how thoughtful application of form and function can impact the way people live their lives. Since the beginning, this unifying vision has been the basis for the continual exploration of what a design store can be.

More than forty-seven years after opening its doors, Luminaire continues to hold true to its hallmark ideals of introducing the American market to the work of innovative international designers and using good design to change the way people conceive of, and interact with, their environment. What started with the Nasir and Nargis Kassamali’s humble desire to share their vision with the wider public has developed into the most influential and insightful voice in the design industry.

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