PH5: the pendant that tamed glare
Poul Henningsen spent more than thirty years teaching light to behave. The PH5 of 1958 is the result: a pendant that hides its bulb and lays a soft, even glow across the table.
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Icons
The great designer lamps and the stories behind them.
Some lamps changed how we light our homes. The PH5 tamed glare, the Arco moved the ceiling light to the table, the Tizio balanced on counterweights. Here are the icons of lighting design: who made them, how they work and how to live with them today.
Arco: the floor lamp that brought the ceiling light to the table
A block of marble, a steel arc and a polished dome. In 1962 Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni found a way to hang light over a table without touching the ceiling.
Tizio: Richard Sapper’s black balancing act
Counterweights instead of springs, current running through the arms and a tiny halogen head. Richard Sapper’s Tizio of 1972 still looks like the future of the desk.
Akari: Isamu Noguchi’s light sculptures of paper and bamboo
In 1951 a sculptor visited a lantern town in Japan and turned its old craft into modern light. Isamu Noguchi’s Akari still glow in washi and bamboo, handmade in Gifu.
Anglepoise: the spring-balanced lamp born from engineering
A car engineer, a set of springs and a lamp that stays exactly where you put it. George Carwardine’s Anglepoise of the early 1930s became the model for every jointed desk lamp since.
Atollo: Vico Magistretti’s lamp made of three shapes
A cylinder, a cone and a hemisphere: in 1977 Vico Magistretti reduced the table lamp to three pure solids for Oluce and created one of the most recognisable silhouettes in Italian design.
AJ lamp: Arne Jacobsen’s light for a modern hotel
Drawn in 1957 for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen, Arne Jacobsen’s AJ lamp reduced a reading light to a stem, a slanted shade and a base, and Louis Poulsen has made it ever since.
Tolomeo: the aluminium desk lamp that became a family
Polished aluminium arms, hidden springs and thin steel cables: Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina’s Tolomeo for Artemide turned the balanced-arm lamp into a whole family of lights.
Eclisse: Vico Magistretti’s lamp that eclipses itself
Turn the inner shell and the light narrows to a crescent, then a thin halo. Vico Magistretti’s Eclisse for Artemide, designed in 1965, turned an old lantern idea into a perfect bedside lamp.
Lampe Gras: the industrial lamp that modernists loved
Designed in 1921 for offices and factories and assembled without screws or welds, the lamp of Bernard-Albin Gras found its way into Le Corbusier’s studio and onto the walls of modern homes.
Timeline
The icons in time
Choose a lamp on the timeline to see who designed it and why it matters.
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