23 January, 2008

Poul Henningsen - A Danish designers' life and biography

Poul Henningsen became Denmark's first expert in lighting theory. He was also a prominent cultural and literary personality in its lifetime. Although he was a man of much talent and knowledge he is best known for his lamps. His influence at home and kontorsbelysnings form, style and culture can be seen today.

To gain insight into the Henningsen's work is a review of his early years helpfully. Poul Henningsen was born 1894 as son of a writer and satirist. He spent a pleasant childhood in an open-minded home, with regular contact with visiting highly educated and a writer. A special thing about his childhood was that it was lit by electric light, but instead the soft glow of gas lamps. It was of course the standard of small town life without electricity at the turn of the century.

When he was old enough he began a formal education and training at the Technical School and the Danish Technical University . He studied and practiced for some years to become an architect but took no formal degree. Yet he managed to still get some private and commercial work as a freelance architect in Copenhagen. He also wrote for several newspapers, magazines and theaters.

When he frequented buildings with electric lighting became Poul Henningsen intimidated by the forms and the function of these lights. He disliked how they got their surroundings that look and feel. He felt that his time lighting appeared as ugly, harsh, blinding and relatively unpleasant to experience.

Poul Henningsen

As a result, he experimented with creating new lighting variations to produce soft, atmospheric lighting. 1924 he designed his first multi-shaded lamp, the prototype for what later would become known as PH-lamp. He debuted with some of their designs at the 1925 exhibition of decorative arts in Paris and won first prize in the category of contemporary lighting. PH model became very popular and put into production shortly thereafter.

He created the lighting , such as distributed and filtered light through the clever positioning of the lamp shades. He adapted to their size and shape to fit its function. His lampshades covering the bulb and directs the light downwards in order to generate soft information, to achieve a light atmosphere of relaxing comfort.