The very influential Danish designer, architect, writer, and cultural critic, Poul Henningsen (1894-1967), has had a huge impact on Danish thinking and design. His legacy is an integrated part of Louis Poulsen’s endeavor to shape light…
Poul Henningsen was born in Copenhagen in 1894 as the son of the Danish writers Agnes Henningsen and Carl Ewald. He started practicing traditional functionalist architecture, but over the years his professional interests changed to focus mainly on lighting, which is what he is most famous for.
Poul Henningsen was not primarily driven by the wish of designing aesthetic lamps, but instead to create the optimal light. He drew the models for his first PH lamps in 1924, where he developed the famous three-shade system. Poul Henningsen wanted to create a lampshade that emitted a functional, pleasant, and glare-free light.
He based the three-shade system on a logarithmic spiral to make the optimal use of the light source. The form of the shades was determined by the way he wanted them to shape and reflect the light. From meticulous calculations and an abundance of tests, he created a system that directed a glare free-light to where it was needed the most. The way he functionally utilised the shades was nothing less than revolutionary.
