Famous designer lamps: the classics from Tiffany to the PH 5

Among the best-known designer lamps are the Tiffany lamp of around 1900, Peter Behrens’s arc lamp for AEG of 1907, the Bauhaus lamp of 1924, the Kaiser Idell of 1931, the Anglepoise of 1932, the PH 5 of 1958, the Arco of 1962 and the Swedish Bumling of 1968. What they have in common is that the form solves a problem with the light: glare, direction or where the lamp can stand.

Facts

Light as a design problem

A lamp is more than a shade on a base. It must give light where it is needed, not dazzle and be possible to place in the room, and every new light source has set new demands. Candles and oil lamps gave a weak light, paraffin and gas a stronger one, and when Edison’s light bulb came in 1879 the light became so harsh that it needed to be screened.

The diagram of lamp types further down shows how the shape of the shade directs the light down towards the table, up towards the ceiling or in a narrow cone onto the work. The classics on the list are solutions to precisely those problems. All the lamps in the category can be found under lighting.

Before Modernism: Tiffany and Behrens

The Tiffany lamp was made by Tiffany Studios in New York from around 1895 to the 1930s. The shade consists of hundreds of pieces of coloured glass joined with copper and tin, in patterns of flowers and dragonflies that were often designed by Clara Driscoll and other women in the workshop. It has been copied more than almost any other lamp; how to recognise a genuine one is explained in the guide to the Tiffany lamp.

Peter Behrens went the other way. When AEG employed him in 1907 he designed arc lamps from a few standard parts, cylinders, rings and spheres, which could be combined into different models. It was one of the first industrial products that an artist designed for a whole company, and it points forward to the Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus and the task lamp

The Bauhaus lamp was designed in 1924 by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, in one version together with Carl Jakob Jucker, as a student in the metal workshop in Weimar. The shade is a hemisphere of opal glass, the base a circle and the stem a cylinder, and the lamp shows the school’s idea of basic forms and honest materials; see the guide What is the Bauhaus?. Christian Dell, a master in the same workshop, later designed the task lamp Kaiser Idell with a conical shade for industry.

The most copied task lamp came from an engineer. George Carwardine worked with springs for vehicles and designed an arm that is held in balance in every position, and he patented the Anglepoise in 1932. The lamp moves like an arm, with shoulder, elbow and wrist, and stays where it is put. The technology became the form itself.

Art Deco in alabaster and glass

Not all classics are technical. Pierre Chareau’s floor lamp La Religieuse of 1923 has a shade of angular alabaster panels that let through a warm, soft light, and the name refers to the silhouette of a nun. It shows Art Deco from its most restrained side, and examples are in the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

At the same time René Lalique made lamps in pressed glass, and the French glasshouses continued the Art Nouveau tradition of lamps as sculptures. The difference between the two styles is described in the guide to Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

PH 5: the light that does not dazzle

Poul Henningsen devoted his life to making electric light pleasant. From 1925 he made lamps with several shades for Louis Poulsen, in which the curves of the shades were calculated so that the light is reflected before it reaches the eye. The PH 5 came in 1958, when light bulbs had become more powerful, and the name comes from the diameter of the upper shade, 50 centimetres.

The cross-section in the diagram further down shows how the rays bounce between the three shades and how the line of sight from the table never reaches the bulb. The lamp is still made and hangs over dining tables throughout the Nordic countries. More about Poul Henningsen and the other Danish designers can be found in the guide to famous Danish designers.

Arco and Bumling: the lamp in the room

The brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni wanted a ceiling light over the dining table without making a hole in the ceiling. They took a street lamp as their model and set it on a heavy marble base, and the Arco came out from Flos in 1962. The arc is high enough to walk under, and the marble block has a hole where a rod can be inserted to carry it.

In Sweden Anders Pehrson designed Bumling for Ateljé Lyktan in 1968, a heavy, round ceiling light in aluminium that became a classic in kitchens and dining rooms. It shows the end of the soft forms of the 1960s. Look at the lamps at home: can you see the bulb from where you sit, or has the designer hidden it? That is often the best question to begin with.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Why is the bulb almost never visible in a PH 5?