Muller Van Severen creates human-sized candelabras for Milan design week

Belgian design duo Muller Van Severen has developed a collection of oversized aluminium candlesticks that tower over humans, which will be on show at Milan design week.

The exhibition, Silhouettes: Celebrating 15 Years, will be presented by Tim Van Laere Gallery at the Ordet arts space and was developed in collaboration with publishing house Apartamento.

The show will coincide with the launch of a new monograph entitled A Lot of Work, which will feature examples of the duo's past collaborations alongside their individual work as artists.

Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen began working together in 2011 on sculptural furniture designs that explore alternative approaches to form, space and how we interact with everyday objects.

The exhibition emerged from a convergence of the studio's recent projects, which include the development of new candle holders and a series of life-size lamps.

At the same time, Muller and Van Severen were working with Apartamento to select images for their upcoming book, and identified several examples of coherence within their previous designs.

"During that process, certain recurring forms began to stand out," the designers told Dezeen. "These forms, which have accompanied us over the years, became the starting point for the candle holders."

"Through rotation, inversion or the closure of forms, they are reduced to silhouettes," they added, "causing them to shed their original function and appear as autonomous signs in space."

The candle holders reference some of the studio's earliest pieces, including the Duo Seat and Rocking Chair, as well as more recent designs such as the Wire furniture series and the Bridges cabinet for BD Barcelona.

Muller and Van Severen took these fundamental forms and expanded them to create a series of 15 unique objects with a playful architectural presence.

"We were fascinated by the idea of an inverted model: displaying enlarged versions of objects that could just as easily exist as smaller, more intimate pieces," the duo explained.

"This shift in scale alters the way the objects are perceived, giving them a different presence and autonomy."

The pieces are all made entirely from aluminium, lending them a consistency that focuses attention on the shapes, proportions and compositions.

Large coloured candles add what the designers described as a "temporal dimension" to the objects that is both literal and symbolic.

"Each work undergoes a slow and irreversible transformation as the candle burns," Muller and Van Severen pointed out, "making time an active and sculptural element."

"In a broader sense, this can also be read as a subtle reflection on the present moment," they added. "In a world that sometimes seems to be literally on fire, small points of light can nevertheless suggest a sense of continuity or hope."

The self-initiated project represents a return to Muller and Van Severen's roots as artists and is the first time in several years that they will showcase their own work in Milan, rather than a collaboration with a client.

They described the project as "a moment of reflection" that allowed them to create something new based on familiar forms and ideas from their oeuvre.

The duo are currently working on an exhibition for the Tim Van Laere Gallery in Rome that will consist of sculptural wooden cabinets with integrated lighting.

Their previous projects include a temporary takeover of a modernist villa near Lille, France, and a collection of furniture made by shaping rows of aluminium pipes.

The photography is courtesy of Muller Van Severen.

Silhouettes: Celebrating 15 Years takes place from 18 to 26 April 2026 at Odet, Via Filippino Lippi 4, Milan, Italy. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.

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