Mid-century Ph5 pendant lamp by Poul Henningsen for Louis Polsen, 1960s

An original PH5 Classic designed by Poul Henningsen and made by Louis Polsen in the 1960’s a wonderful example of paired back and considered Scandinavian Modern Design produced in the Mid Century Modern golden years. Designer Poul Henningsen began working together with The Maker Louis Poulsen in 1924, with a view to taking part in an international exhibition for decorative art to be held in Paris called "Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs & Industriels Modernes". A competition was held to find qualified participants for a further project and Henningsen’s sleek, spare lamp was awarded a gold medal.He then started practicing traditional functionalistic architecture, but over the years his professional interests changed to focus mainly on lighting, which is what he is most famous for. The PH-lamp is a term for light fixtures designed by Danish designer and writer Poul Henningsen The term is sometimes used to refer to any lamp designed by Henningsen or specially Henningsen’s three-shade lamp series. Henningsen’s lamps are designed with multiple concentric shades to eliminate visual glare, only emitting reflected light, obscuring the light source. The fixture provides 100 glare-free light. Poul Henningsen developed the PH 5 in 1958 as a follow-up to his celebrated three-shade system. The fixture emits both downward and lateral light, thus illuminating itself. In the PH 5 Classic, a warmer tone of light is created by the inside red cone and a small blue reflector. After the Paris exhibit, Louis Poulsen and Henningsen were awarded a contract to provide lighting for the newly constructed Forum building in Copenhagen. The building was planned to house an international car exhibition. Rather than using beam lighting, which would illuminate the cars’ roofs and hoods but leave the sides of the vehicles dark, Henningsen iterated on the Paris Lamp design to create a lamp that would channel the light in oblique paths. The Forum lamp had three shades, with diameter proportions of the shades following a 4:2:1 ratio. This ratio allowed the upper shade to reflect 50 of the light and the middle shade and bottom shade to reflect 25 each. The lamp Henningsen created for Forum would be the basis for the three-shade system. The design was subsequently developed into a comprehensive system of lamps of different sizes, colors, materials, types (floor lamps, table lamps and chandeliers). During 1926–27, the Forum lamp design was converted into the rational three-shade system that could accommodate many different needs.