The core philosophies of Luminaire – the necessity of design education, the desire for limitless inspiration and the requirement of impeccably detailed execution – inhabit the company’s roots and extend far beneath the current landscape. “From the age of 16, I dreamt of having something like a church, where people would come to experience good design,” says Nasir Kassamali, who with his wife Nargis, envisioned and created the company. From Kenya and of Indian ancestry, the Kassamalis emigrated to the United States in 1973. Presciently enamored by the work of visionaries such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen, their keen foresight stemmed from an intense appreciation for design and grew into a powerful desire to share this knowledge with the public, while making the highest level of contemporary, international products directly accessible to the consumer.

At the time of the their arrival in the United States, the landscape of superior home furnishings was restricted to interior designers who provided consumers with the only means of access to design showrooms open solely to the trade. Propelled by the motivation to remove barriers and democratize design, the Kassamalis distilled their long-standing dream into a singular concept: Luminaire. The company’s first showroom, specializing in European lighting, opened as a 500-square-foot kiosk in North Miami Beach in 1974, boldly blazing the path that would eventually make the finest offerings in international design directly available to the U.S. consumer.

Since its inception, Luminaire has continued to both expand and respond to the needs of an increasingly receptive audience. Within two years, its original store grew to 4,500 square feet as a wider range of products including furniture and accessories was added, many of them available for the first time in North America. In 1984, an award-winning flagship store designed by Mateu Architects, was built in Coral Gables and five years later, a Chicago location debuted. With the turn of the millennium in January 2000, a 35,000-square-foot state-of-the-art corporate headquarters and distribution center designed by Mateu Carreno Rizo Partners was completed near the Miami Airport, garnering numerous design awards, while in April of the following year, the Chicago showroom expanded to occupy three floors of an old timber building in the heart of the River North area. October 2002 saw the opening of Luminaire Contract in the Miami Design District, and in 2003, Luminaire opened the Boffi Kitchen and Bath showroom in Coral Gables, a space dedicated to promoting the concept of “essential living.” The opening of Luminaire Lab in January of 2007 marked a new approach. A deviation from the traditional showroom, the 7,500-square-foot store specializes in showcasing new and exclusive pieces from top manufacturers. With a constantly changing environment, it is an investigative playground that encourages visitors to think outside the box.