Poul Henningsen

Danish designer, writer and critic, Poul Henningsen, known as PH, developed with Louis Poulsen a multi-shade lamp system that remains one of the references of modern lighting.

Poul Henningsen was born in 1894 in Ordrup and died in 1967 in Hillerød. He studied at the Danish College of Technology from 1911 to 1917, worked with the architect Kay Fisker from 1919 and then as an independent designer. He was also a journalist at Politiken from 1921, edited the magazine Kritisk Revy from 1926 to 1928, left for Sweden in 1943 and returned in 1945, then became head architect at Tivoli.

His collaboration with Louis Poulsen, a Copenhagen company founded in 1874, began in 1924. In 1925 his multi-shade lamp won a gold medal at the Paris exhibition, and in 1926 the first production PH lamps were made for the Forum hall in Copenhagen. The principle: several shades, sized and positioned so that the bulb is never visible and the light is reflected without glare.

• PH 4/3: around 1928 in glass according to lex.dk, with a metal version in 1966.
• PH 5, 1958: designed to take any bulb shape without glare.
• PH Artichoke, 1958, created for the Langelinie Pavilion restaurant in Copenhagen: 72 leaves in 12 rows on a steel frame.