Gerini Travertine Up & Down Wall Light

Gerini is a wall light that throws light in two directions from a cylindrical travertine shade mounted on a slim rectangular backplate in dark wood and metal. The measurements are 230 x 65 x 65 mm, so it is narrow and vertical, and the geometry is the point: a soft round form against a straight plate, which gives the piece a sculptural quality from the side as well as head on. The travertine does the work you buy stone for. It is a limestone formed in layers around mineral springs, so its surface carries open pores and faint banding, the colour drifts between cream and warm sand, and because each shade is cut from a different part of the block, no two are the same. Because the cylinder is open at both ends, light escapes upward and downward at once. That produces the effect this fitting is built for: two soft triangles of light washing the wall above and below, with a dark band between them, so the wall itself becomes part of the lighting instead of a flat surface with a lamp stuck to it. An E14 LED is included, so it works from the first evening. The dark backplate keeps the mounting hardware out of view and gives the pale stone something to read against.

Up and down wall lights change a room in a way that lamps cannot, because they light the vertical surfaces. In a hallway, where the walls are almost the entire room, a pair of them turns a plain corridor into something with rhythm and depth, and the light thrown up onto the ceiling stops the passage from feeling low. Beside a bed, mounted at roughly shoulder height when sitting, the downward wash is enough to read by while the upward wash keeps the corner of the room from going completely black, which is a much gentler way to be awake at night than a ceiling light. In a living room it works on the wall behind a sofa, in an alcove, or flanking a chimney breast, where the two beams of light give a wall texture that a single overhead fixture flattens out. Because it stands only 65 mm off the wall, it fits in tight places: the wall of a staircase, the space beside a door, the strip between two windows. In a room with rough plaster, brick or textured paint, the grazing light reveals the surface rather than washing it out. Mounting height is worth thinking about, since the higher you set it the wider the upper triangle spreads across the ceiling and the tighter the lower pool becomes on the floor.

Two directional openings from one small fitting is what makes this design worth choosing over a plain sconce. You get the practical downward light for reading or navigating, and the upward light that keeps the room from feeling closed in, both from a single point on the wall and a single switch. The combination of materials backs that up: warm porous stone against a dark backplate reads as a deliberate contrast rather than a single finish applied to everything, and the darker plate makes the lit stone look brighter than it measures. The E14 socket means the bulb is replaceable and the fitting outlives it, which is not true of the sealed LED sconces that fill this price range, and one is supplied so nothing needs ordering separately. Gerini suits people lighting a hallway or staircase properly for the first time, anyone who wants bedside light without surrendering the nightstand, and buyers who like architectural lighting effects but do not want recessed fittings cut into the ceiling. Buy them in pairs or in threes down a wall, where the variation in the stone keeps a repeated fitting from looking like a hotel corridor. Spacing them roughly two metres apart along a hallway gives an even rhythm of light without leaving dark gaps between them.

• Material: travertine with dark wood and metal backplate
• Light direction: up and down, two sided
• Light source: E14 LED, included
• Type: wall light
• Dimensions: 230 x 65 x 65 mm
• Style: minimalist, modern, natural
• Natural stone: pores and tone vary from piece to piece