Alabaster is quarried in solid blocks, often from deposits that have sat undisturbed for thousands of years. What comes out of the ground looks plain — it's only once it's cut and set against light that the stone starts to reveal itself.

That transformation, from a dense, opaque block to something light can move through, is the whole reason this material was chosen for lighting rather than left as a building stone.

"What begins as ordinary stone becomes something else entirely the moment light finds its way through it."