2026
Reading Corner Sconce, no. 14
Spun brass, slip-cast ceramic shade, hand-wired
The headline of her NYCxDESIGN show. Designed for the corner of a low chair and a half-shelf of books.
open edition
from $1,450
Represented by Afternoon Light · Red Hook, Brooklyn
Mira Halbach
Halbach Studio
Light is the slowest material.
Studio · Red Hook, Brooklyn
The Red Hook studio at 6:32pm in May — brass sconce prototypes lined up against the south-facing window, kiln still warm, the dog asleep on a drop cloth.
Practice
Halbach works between brass spinning and slip-cast ceramic. Each light begins as a drawing of a specific room — a friend's reading corner, a restaurant booth, the back of a Greenwich Village bookstore — and grows toward the proportion that room actually needs. She fabricates the metal herself; the ceramic is poured in Hudson, NY, by a small atelier she's worked with since 2019. The studio's working pace is deliberately slow. The Afternoon Light showroom holds her open editions; the studio handles the commissions.
Signature objects
What's at the showroom this week.
Save an object and the world around it opens — the material, the showroom, the studio visit, the morning coffee the maker actually takes.
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2025
Booth Light, no. 6
Spun brass, opal glass diffuser
Originally built for a Greenpoint restaurant. Now lives as a small edition.
edition of 25
from $2,200
2025
Bookstore Pendant, no. 3
Cast bronze, paper-wrapped cord, fabric shade
A standing commission for the Three Lives bookstore — now opened to twelve buyers.
edition of 12
from $3,400
Materials
The matter behind the work.
Spun brass
Custom-spun by a fourth-generation atelier in Long Island City.
Slip-cast ceramic
Poured in Hudson, NY; matte glaze in a single warm-bone finish.
Opal glass
Hand-blown for the Booth Light series; sourced from a Brooklyn glass shop.
Paper-wrapped cord
Imported from a Dutch supplier who has made cord this way since 1947.
References
What shaped this work.
designer
Greta Magnusson Grossman
The Cobra lamp lineage.
designer
Hans-Agne Jakobsson
Scandinavian residential lighting.
book
The Poetics of Space
Gaston Bachelard
The book that taught her to design for a room before designing a light.
object
Isamu Noguchi · Akari
The reference for warmth without literalness.
Showroom route
Where the work lives this week.
Afternoon Light
Open during NYCxDESIGN, Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–7pm. Halbach in attendance Friday afternoon.
Coming Soon · NoHo
Two of her commissioned pieces in the back room.
Future Perfect · Goldwin Studio
Her brass + bronze pieces in conversation with their seating program.
Studio rituals
Where the maker actually stops.
Court Street Grocers · Red Hook
Morning egg sandwich. She brings drawings on graph paper.
Sunny's Bar · Red Hook
Friday evening with the studio team. Stays for one round, never two.
Pioneer Works · Red Hook
Her thinking walk. Especially the upstairs gallery.
Expanding show
The Long Light: American Domestic Lighting 1965–2025
at Cooper Hewitt
Two Halbach pieces in the next-to-last room. Group show. Through November.
A question for the buyer
"Which room in your life is currently lit wrong, and what is the room actually asking for?"
Walk into the showroom with a question. The conversation becomes a thread in the graph.
Keep this
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When you opt in, this designer's world becomes part of your NYCxDESIGN thread. The next time Mira Halbach drops an edition, you'll be reminded — not by a marketing email, by your own captured moment.
Return to your Design Week threadCarry this world home
Objects, editions, a studio visit, the maker's morning coffee.
Every item is a real thread out of this world — into a showroom, an edition, a studio visit, a book. Prices indicative. Click-through resolves the final price.
6 ways out · showroom + studio
monograph
Mira Halbach · Light Is The Slowest Material (2026)
via Afternoon Light · publications
First studio monograph. Includes the Reading Corner Sconce series in full.
from $48
Openobject
Reading Corner Sconce, no. 14
via Afternoon Light
Open edition. 6-week lead time. Mira hand-finishes each one.
from $1,450
Openstudio visit
Halbach Studio visit · Red Hook
via Halbach Studio
Open Saturdays during NYCxDESIGN by appointment. Tea, drawings, prototype walk-through.
from by appointment
Openshowroom visit
Afternoon Light · Lower Manhattan
via Afternoon Light
Open Tuesday–Saturday during NYCxDESIGN. Mira in attendance Friday 2–5pm.
from free
Openbook
Gaston Bachelard · The Poetics of Space
via Penguin Modern Classics
Bachelard on the way a room remembers its inhabitants. Mira keeps a marked copy in the studio.
from $18
Openreservation
Court Street Grocers · Red Hook
via Court Street Grocers
Mira's morning sandwich. The egg, the New York Times, the graph paper.
from $14
OpenPartner + affiliate disclosure: items marked affiliate route through partner links and may share a small commission with the designer's world layer. Objects and studio visits route directly to the showroom or studio.