COGNOSCENTE

For a new lighting collection, designer Jonathan Browning took cues from California’s iconic landscapes.

A Southern California childhood amid beaches and dunes prepared San Francisco designer Jonathan Browning for his latest project: a 22-piece collection of lighting for San Francisco-based McGuire Furniture. His work until now — both for his own studio and for his Restoration Hardware collection — has explored the intersection of ornate French classicism and tough industrial design. But now he says he’s tuned into “the easy breezy beauty and relaxed sophistication” that make McGuire furnishings “quintessentially California.”

“I turned back the dial so I could recognize again those really simple moments in nature, especially at the beach,” says Browning, a former VP of design at Starwood. He went with a limited palette of raw materials, from bisque porcelain (“this reminds me of sand dollars”) to oxidized brass (“the sea is the greatest corroder of metal”) to Danish cord, a McGuire staple that evokes maritime knots.

From there, Browning turned to elements unique to the Northern California coast: The brass cylinders of the Tomales chandelier, for example, are inspired by the symmetrical cones of the bishop pine, while the sandblasted glass of the Limantour torchiere recalls the lovely radiance of light streaming through fog. Although the brass Nipomo chandelier, above, conjures the iconic Sputnik fixture, the golden rays are definitely all California, the land of the sun. “It all comes down to light,” says Browning. “We seek it out. It lures us in. It is everything.”