Bauhaus lamp

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Two table lamps based on designs by Wilhelm Wagenfeld from 1924

The Bauhaus lamp is a table lamp, the type of which was designed by Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Carl Jakob Jucker as students at the Weimar Bauhaus . It follows the design principle " form follows function " and is considered an icon of modern industrial design .

description

Two versions of the licensed re-edition
Bauhaus lamp on a postage stamp (1998)

The Bauhaus lamp consists of nickel-plated metal and glass and was realized in different models. The shade in the form of a 5/8 sphere was made of opal glass , which diffuses the light from the luminous body . Since luminaires provided with opal glass were only used in the industrial sector until then, it is the first electric luminaire that enabled diffused light in living spaces. The socket of the lamp body is carried by a cylindrical shaft, which is either made of metal or clear glass, with the models with glass having a metal tube that holds the power cable. In the preliminary draft, Carl Jacob Jucker led the power cable directly through the glass shaft; Wagenfeld added the nickel-plated metal tube in 1924. The outer power cable is covered with textile. There is a characteristic sleeve on the shaft from which the cord of the pull switch leads, the end of the cord is provided with a nickel-plated metal ball. The round base of the lamp is also made either of metal or of green shimmering clear glass.

With the use of simple geometric shapes such as the round base and the cylindrical shaft, Wagenfeld and Jucker achieved, in line with the design principle "Form follows function", "maximum simplicity as well as maximum economic efficiency within the framework of time and the materials available".

history

The lamp was designed in the metal workshop at the Bauhaus from 1923 after László Moholy-Nagy had reorganized it as the new “ form master ”. Walter Gropius had pushed through the reorientation of the Bauhaus against the artistic intentions of Johannes Itten and set the goal of producing mass-producible products that were to be developed collaboratively using new materials. Jucker resorted to components from Gyula Pap and already showed the unfinished lamp with a glass base and column at the Bauhaus exhibition of 1923 in the model house Am Horn in autumn , while Wagenfeld placed a metal lamp next to it in 1924. As early as 1924 attempts were made to market the lamp commercially, which failed because most of its components had to be handcrafted in the Bauhaus workshop. But even when the lamp was first offered by Schwintzer & Graff from industrial production in 1928, the Bauhaus lamp was unaffordable for large sections of the population at 55 Reichsmarks .

It has been produced in large numbers by the Bremen company Tecnolumen since 1980 and marketed as the Wilhelm Wagenfeld table lamp .

There are different versions of the Bauhaus lamp, such as WG24, WA23SW, or WG25GL. The number always stands for the year of publication, and the letters WG or WA for Wagenfeld.

As an outstanding example of modern product design , it was accepted into the collection of the Museum of Modern Art .

literature

  • Dieter Büchner: From Weimar to Geislingen. Wilhelm Wagenfeld, the Bauhaus and WMF . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg 2/2019, pp. 92–98.
  • Magdalena Droste: The Bauhaus lamp by Carl Jacob Jucker and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-7643-6831-4 .
  • Thomas Heyden: The Bauhaus lamp. To the career of a classic. Berlin: Reimer 1992, ISBN 3-496-01087-8
  • Beate Manske: Two lamps are never the same. Wilhelm Wagenfeld in the metal workshop of the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar , in: Klaus Weber, Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar (Ed.): Die Metallwerkstatt am Bauhaus: Exhibition in the Bauhaus Archive, Museum of Design, Berlin, February 9 - April 20, 1992 . Berlin: Kupfergraben-Verl.-Ges., 2005³, pp. 79–91
  • TL1: Detailed description of the luminaire and the first marketing attempts in the TL1 magazine from Technolumen, Bremen 2018
  • In hand every day, industrial forms from Wilhelm Wagenfeld from six decades. Worpsweder Verlag, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-88808-550-0 . (with catalog raisonné)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Hamburg Higher Regional Court has legally confirmed Wilhelm Wagenfeld's sole authorship of the designs for the Bauhaus lamp in 1999: OLG Hamburg, judgment of March 4, 1999, AZ: 3 U 169/98
  2. ↑ zeitlos-berlin.de: The creation of an icon: The Bauhaus lamp , accessed on October 16, 2015
  3. ^ "Wagenfeld and Jucker achieved 'both maximum simplicity and, in terms of time and materials, greatest economy.'" Table lamp in the Museum of modern Art
  4. ↑ Wilhelm Wagenfeld table lamp at Tecnolumen
  5. ^ Table lamp in the Museum of modern Art