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THE GOOD LIGHT

THE GOOD LIGHT
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louis poulsen

good light & GOOD LIFE Poul Henningsen – the lighting pio- the lighting level had to be soft and pleasing”. For this neer and enlightened genius reason, the young Poul Henningsen took it upon himself who helped shape contempo- to eliminate the glare from all the lamps in the house. rary Denmark and ‘the Scan- PH was what could best be described as a Jack-of-all- dinavian Model’ trades. He was a multi-talented artist: architect, inven- tor, designer, songwriter, lyricist and film-maker. He was also an art and architecture critic, before becoming a Vain mother and young inventor Poul...

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his mother prettier, but he gradually started to work on Giant leap and white birds more general lighting issues. DPH achieved his first giant leap in 1925 when he created new types of lamp for an international industrial art Applied art and the beauty of light exhibition in Paris: the Exposition Internationale des Arts Poul Henningsen was apprenticed to a mason and took Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, which gave its name courses in construction theory and mathematics. How- to the elegant Art Déco style. One of the criteria for the ever, he was actually an autodidact. From 1919 he...

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numerous countries, in parallel with new branded goods design. He was unabashedly committed to becoming a including furniture, gramophones, typewriters and cars. brand. The success of his lamps made his initials – PH – a In 1929, the lamp was installed at Cologne Railway Sta- trademark that he also wrote in giant letters on his kites tion, while a campaign in the Danish press prevented ‘these modern horrors’ being purchased for Copenhagen The PH ‘brand’ was reinforced by his controversial journal Central Station. entitled Kritisk Revy. Over a period of three years from 1926 through 1928, it...

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sceptical modernist. He was critical of exterior formalism particularly the type that came sneaking up from Nazi in much of the ultra-modern style of the time, but there Germany in 1933, infecting the Danish people with iras- are key similarities between his work and Bauhaus, the cible nationalism. PH collided head-on with this move- Dutch ‘De Stijl’ and the work of the French architect Le ment in 1935, when he made his film about Denmark for Corbusier. His ideal centred on simple, functional shapes the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The film presents a in materials suitable for batch...

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with a pleated paper shade and selling it through the Co- Above all, PH was an artist. His works of genius are the operation. For 42 years, Louis Poulsen & Co. was both his journal Kritisk Revy, his esteemed Danmarksfilmen, his creative environment and a base that made him inde- renewal of the revue – and, first and foremost, the PH pendent of media, authorities and organisations when Lamp. During his twilight years, his cultural criticism he baited public opinion. became shaded by cultural pessimism. He feared that From a stylistic perspective, too, it is possible to deter- ‘industrial...

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louis poulsen www.louispoulsen.com Why is the PH lamp the only lamp that ever gets copied? &q ft PHylampin. ? Text and drawing by Poul Henningsen, 1931 newspaper advertisement

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