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Lot Essay
Poul Henningsen, or PH, trained at the Copenhagen College of Technology and enjoyed a versatile career as an architect, cultural critic and revue writer, but it was his lamps that made him globally famous from the 1920s. Henningsen grew up with the soft glow of the gas lamp and, as electrical lighting using incandescent bulbs grew in usage during the 1920s, he strained against the blinding glare from the prevalent bulbs and began to develop a lamp which would be relaxing to live with, starting a life-long investigation into the properties, effects and manipulation of light. His first lamp, an anti-glare three-shade lamp, was awarded a gold medal by the jury of the 1925 World's Fair in Paris, L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels
Modernes, to become one of the earliest examples of Danish design to gain global appeal. Further years of relentless and officially patented experimentation with layered shade design created an entire system of PH table lamps, wall lights and floor lights, in which the curved glass or metal shades completely surround the source of light so that no radiating rays could meet the eye directly. The Spiral was originally designed for the main hall of the University of Århus. The architect of the building, C.F. Møller, approached Henningsen to produce the lighting for the room which featured 19 metre high ceilings, and PH suggested lamps with spiral shades, designed to look as though they were drawn in one long stroke. For this PH refined and developed further the technical and theoretical
preparation he had created for an earlier ceiling light, the ‘Globe’, in 1934. PH discussed the ‘Spiral’ ceiling light in LP Nyt, a publication by his manufacturer Louis Poulsen, in November 1942. In the article, he states "The principle in this lamp is much the same as in the PH-lamp and the Globe per se, but the light ray direction is reminiscent of the way it shines outwards from the Globe. The shape is geometric and the light strikes all the parts of the spiral which are illuminated at the same angle reflecting it out into the room in the same way." The shade is held together by three arms onto which a small angle was brazed at a specific position where the shade is meant to be secured and at the correct angle so that the light was most efficiently reflected. Due to
the constant rise in the spiral each arm is therefore different and this, together with the difficulties and cost of cutting the shade and then brazing them onto the arms, meant that the construction of each spiral was very complex, time-consuming and expensive, which prevented them from being produced in quantity. The prototype “Spiral Lamp” was drawn and first presented at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists’ Autumn Exhibition) in 1942, however, the set of twelve needed to light the Århus hall were not installed until after the war. The original set of twelve remain in situ today. In addition to the University, the Spiral was used in a handful of (largely unknown) other installations, but was never put into wider production. One rare known commission was of a set of six Spirals installed in the assembly hall of Grådybskole [Grådyb School], Esbjerg, on the west coast of Denmark. The primary school was built in the
early 1950s to a design by Peer Haugaard Nielsen and Carl Johan Nørgaard-Pedersen, winners of a competition initiated by Crown Prince Frederick and Crown Princess Ingrid which had received 61 entries. The school opened in 1954, finally closing in 1989 when it was merged with other academic intuitions. The lamps remained in situ until 2010 when a wider redevelopment program commenced on the site, being removed and then dispersed in 2013. The present lamp is one of six from this commission.
Today they are recognised as one of the purest expressions of Henningsen’s technical virtuosity, where its simplicity and purity of
form reveal the perfectionist artistry of its conception.
Poul Henningsen, or PH, trained at the Copenhagen College of Technology and enjoyed a versatile career as an architect, cultural critic and revue writer, but it was his lamps that made him globally famous from the 1920s. Henningsen grew up with the soft glow of the gas lamp and, as electrical lighting using incandescent bulbs grew in usage during the 1920s, he strained against the blinding glare from the prevalent bulbs and began to develop a lamp and which would be relaxing to live with, starting a life-long investigation into the properties, effects and manipulation of light. His first lamp, an anti-glare three-shade lamp, was awarded a gold medal by the jury of the 1925 World's Fair in Paris, L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, to become one of the earliest examples of Danish design to gain global appeal. Further years of relentless and officially patented experimentation with layered shade design created an entire system of PH table lamps, wall lights and floor lights, in which the curved glass or metal shades completely surround the source of light so that no radiating rays could meet the eye directly.
The Spiral was originally designed for the main hall of the University of Århus. The architect of the building, C.F. Møller, approached Henningsen to produce the lighting for the room which featured 19 metre high ceilings, and PH suggested lamps with spiral shades, designed to look as though they were drawn in one long stroke. For this PH refined and developed further the technical and theoretical preparation he had created for an earlier ceiling light, the ‘Globe’, in 1934. PH discussed the ‘Spiral’ ceiling light in LP Nyt, a publication by his manufacturer Louis Poulsen, in November 1942. In the article, he states "The principle in this lamp is much the same as in the PH-lamp and the Globe per se, but the light ray direction is reminiscent of the way it shines outwards from the Globe. The shape is geometric and the light strikes all the parts of the spiral which are illuminated at the same angle reflecting it out into the room in the same way." The shade is held together by three arms onto which a small angle was brazed at the correct position where the shade is meant to be secured and at the correct angle so that the light was most efficiently reflected. Due to the constant rise in the spiral each arm is therefore different and this, together with the difficulties and cost of cutting the shade and then brazing them onto the arms, meant that the construction of each spiral was very complex, time-consuming and expensive, which prevented them from being produced in quantity.
The prototype “Spiral Lamp” was drawn and first presented at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists’ Autumn Exhibition) in 1942, however the set of twelve needed to light the Århus hall were not installed until after the war. The original set of twelve remain in situ today. In addition to the University, the Spiral was used in a handful of (largely unknown) other installations, but was never put into wider production. One rare known commission was of a set of six Spirals installed in the assembly hall of Grådybskole [Grådyb School], Esbjerg, on the west coast of Denmark. The primary school was built in the early 1950s to a design by Peer Haugaard Nielsen and Carl Johan Nørgaard-Pedersen, winners of a competition initiated by Crown Prince Frederick and Crown Princess Ingrid which had received 61 entries. The school opened in 1954, finally closing in 1989 when it was merged with other academic intuitions. The lamps remained in situ until 2010 when a wider redevelopment program commenced on the site, being removed and then dispersed in 2013. The present lamp is one of six from this commission.
Today they are recognized as one of the purest expressions of Henningsen’s technical virtuosity, where its simplicity and purity of form reveal the perfectionist artistry of its conception.
Modernes, to become one of the earliest examples of Danish design to gain global appeal. Further years of relentless and officially patented experimentation with layered shade design created an entire system of PH table lamps, wall lights and floor lights, in which the curved glass or metal shades completely surround the source of light so that no radiating rays could meet the eye directly. The Spiral was originally designed for the main hall of the University of Århus. The architect of the building, C.F. Møller, approached Henningsen to produce the lighting for the room which featured 19 metre high ceilings, and PH suggested lamps with spiral shades, designed to look as though they were drawn in one long stroke. For this PH refined and developed further the technical and theoretical
preparation he had created for an earlier ceiling light, the ‘Globe’, in 1934. PH discussed the ‘Spiral’ ceiling light in LP Nyt, a publication by his manufacturer Louis Poulsen, in November 1942. In the article, he states "The principle in this lamp is much the same as in the PH-lamp and the Globe per se, but the light ray direction is reminiscent of the way it shines outwards from the Globe. The shape is geometric and the light strikes all the parts of the spiral which are illuminated at the same angle reflecting it out into the room in the same way." The shade is held together by three arms onto which a small angle was brazed at a specific position where the shade is meant to be secured and at the correct angle so that the light was most efficiently reflected. Due to
the constant rise in the spiral each arm is therefore different and this, together with the difficulties and cost of cutting the shade and then brazing them onto the arms, meant that the construction of each spiral was very complex, time-consuming and expensive, which prevented them from being produced in quantity. The prototype “Spiral Lamp” was drawn and first presented at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists’ Autumn Exhibition) in 1942, however, the set of twelve needed to light the Århus hall were not installed until after the war. The original set of twelve remain in situ today. In addition to the University, the Spiral was used in a handful of (largely unknown) other installations, but was never put into wider production. One rare known commission was of a set of six Spirals installed in the assembly hall of Grådybskole [Grådyb School], Esbjerg, on the west coast of Denmark. The primary school was built in the
early 1950s to a design by Peer Haugaard Nielsen and Carl Johan Nørgaard-Pedersen, winners of a competition initiated by Crown Prince Frederick and Crown Princess Ingrid which had received 61 entries. The school opened in 1954, finally closing in 1989 when it was merged with other academic intuitions. The lamps remained in situ until 2010 when a wider redevelopment program commenced on the site, being removed and then dispersed in 2013. The present lamp is one of six from this commission.
Today they are recognised as one of the purest expressions of Henningsen’s technical virtuosity, where its simplicity and purity of
form reveal the perfectionist artistry of its conception.
Poul Henningsen, or PH, trained at the Copenhagen College of Technology and enjoyed a versatile career as an architect, cultural critic and revue writer, but it was his lamps that made him globally famous from the 1920s. Henningsen grew up with the soft glow of the gas lamp and, as electrical lighting using incandescent bulbs grew in usage during the 1920s, he strained against the blinding glare from the prevalent bulbs and began to develop a lamp and which would be relaxing to live with, starting a life-long investigation into the properties, effects and manipulation of light. His first lamp, an anti-glare three-shade lamp, was awarded a gold medal by the jury of the 1925 World's Fair in Paris, L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, to become one of the earliest examples of Danish design to gain global appeal. Further years of relentless and officially patented experimentation with layered shade design created an entire system of PH table lamps, wall lights and floor lights, in which the curved glass or metal shades completely surround the source of light so that no radiating rays could meet the eye directly.
The Spiral was originally designed for the main hall of the University of Århus. The architect of the building, C.F. Møller, approached Henningsen to produce the lighting for the room which featured 19 metre high ceilings, and PH suggested lamps with spiral shades, designed to look as though they were drawn in one long stroke. For this PH refined and developed further the technical and theoretical preparation he had created for an earlier ceiling light, the ‘Globe’, in 1934. PH discussed the ‘Spiral’ ceiling light in LP Nyt, a publication by his manufacturer Louis Poulsen, in November 1942. In the article, he states "The principle in this lamp is much the same as in the PH-lamp and the Globe per se, but the light ray direction is reminiscent of the way it shines outwards from the Globe. The shape is geometric and the light strikes all the parts of the spiral which are illuminated at the same angle reflecting it out into the room in the same way." The shade is held together by three arms onto which a small angle was brazed at the correct position where the shade is meant to be secured and at the correct angle so that the light was most efficiently reflected. Due to the constant rise in the spiral each arm is therefore different and this, together with the difficulties and cost of cutting the shade and then brazing them onto the arms, meant that the construction of each spiral was very complex, time-consuming and expensive, which prevented them from being produced in quantity.
The prototype “Spiral Lamp” was drawn and first presented at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling (Artists’ Autumn Exhibition) in 1942, however the set of twelve needed to light the Århus hall were not installed until after the war. The original set of twelve remain in situ today. In addition to the University, the Spiral was used in a handful of (largely unknown) other installations, but was never put into wider production. One rare known commission was of a set of six Spirals installed in the assembly hall of Grådybskole [Grådyb School], Esbjerg, on the west coast of Denmark. The primary school was built in the early 1950s to a design by Peer Haugaard Nielsen and Carl Johan Nørgaard-Pedersen, winners of a competition initiated by Crown Prince Frederick and Crown Princess Ingrid which had received 61 entries. The school opened in 1954, finally closing in 1989 when it was merged with other academic intuitions. The lamps remained in situ until 2010 when a wider redevelopment program commenced on the site, being removed and then dispersed in 2013. The present lamp is one of six from this commission.
Today they are recognized as one of the purest expressions of Henningsen’s technical virtuosity, where its simplicity and purity of form reveal the perfectionist artistry of its conception.