Poul Henningsen, “PH Spiral” Ceiling Light

Tina Jørstain and Poul Erik Munk Nielsen, eds., Light Years Ahead: The Story of the PH Lamp, Copenhagen, 2000, pp. 266-268

TF Chan, Louis Poulsen: First House of Light, London, 2024, pp. 49

In 1942, Danish architect C.F. Møller approached Poul Henningsen for the creation of lighting for the main hall of the University of Aarhus, which featured a 62-foot ceiling. Møller had in mind large balloon-shaped ceiling lights. Echoing his original idea, Henningsen created oval ceiling lights hanging from the ceiling and shaped like what would appear as a water-drop, with a spiral shade measuring around 107 cm (42 inches) high. The spiraling layers were uniformly spaced to give the illusion of simplicity. What made its construction particularly complex was Henningsen’s insistence that the light—emanating from a bulb at the bottom of the lamp— should be reflected at different angles depending on the position of the shade, so as to illuminate the hall effectively. “The principle in this lamp is much the same as in the PH lamp and the Globe per se, but the light ray direction is reminiscent of the way it shines outwards from the Globe,” Henningsen wrote in Louis Poulsen’s magazine NYT. “The shape is geometric, and the light strikes all the parts of the spiral which are illuminated at the same angle reflecting it out into the room in the same way.”

The shade is held together by three arms providing a structure for the surrounding spiral looping downwards and at a slight angle. Cutting the aluminum pieces and soldering them together into a coherent spiral, supported by three internal metallic arms, proved enormously difficult and time-consuming. This ultimately meant that the Spiral lamp could not be put into wider production. A prototype was first designed and produced in 1942, but the set of twelve lights was not installed in the university hall until after the war.  

In addition to the university commission, the “Spiral” light was also used in a small number of largely unknown installations throughout Denmark. One of such commissions was of a set of six “Spiral” chandeliers installed in the assembly hall of Grådybskole, Esbjerg, on Denmark’s west coast. The lamps remained there in situ until 2010 when a wider redevelopment program commenced on the site, being removed and then dispersed in 2013. Original examples of the “Spiral” are consequently exceedingly rare. An example of this form is on display at Copenhagen’s Designmuseum Danmark as part of the long-term exhibition The Magic of Form: A Journey Through Danish Design History.