AEG arc lamp
Peter Behrens’s arc lamp for AEG – one of the first industrial products designed by an artist for a whole company.
In 1907 AEG, Germany’s great electricity company, appointed the architect Peter Behrens as its artistic adviser. He designed arc lamps, fans and kettles, but also catalogues, the logo and the turbine factory in Berlin – one of the first examples of a unified corporate identity.
The arc lamp was built from a few parts that could be combined into different models, and its form was sober and easy to manufacture. The ideas of standards and quality in industry were carried on by the Deutscher Werkbund and, through Behrens’s pupils Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, to the Bauhaus.
Materials: Brass, sheet metal and opal glass
Manufacture: Mass-produced by AEG in Berlin in several sizes, for factories, streets and shops, from a small number of standard parts.
The large spherical glass globe, which softens and spreads the light of the arc.
Simple geometric parts – cylinder, rings and sphere – instead of cast ornament.
Rings and mouldings on the housing, where the standard parts are joined.