Louis Poulsen

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Louis Poulsen A / S

logo
legal form Private company
founding 1874
Seat Gammel Strand 28, DK-1202, Copenhagen , Denmark
Number of employees 450 (2013)
sales 750 million DKK (2016)
Branch design
Website http://www.louispoulsen.com/de

Louis Poulsen is a Danish lighting manufacturer. The company was founded in 1874. Louis Poulsen Lighting is represented by sales and subsidiaries as well as by dealers worldwide. The company's most important sales regions include Scandinavia , Europe , Japan and the USA . Louis Poulsen has worked with designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Poul Henningsen . The most famous products are the PH lights.

history

Poul Henningsen's PH-5 lamp.
Poul Henningsen's iconic Artichoke lamp.

In 1874 Ludvig R. Poulsen founded a wine import company under the name "Kjøbenhavns direct Vin-Import-Kompagni" (German: The Copenhagen Direct Wine Import Company). The business was closed in 1878, but in 1892 Ludvig R. Poulsen opened his second company, which specialized in the sale of tools and electrical appliances. Before he died in 1906, Ludvig R. Poulsen hired his nephew Louis Poulsen in 1896. Louis took over the company and two years later moved to Nyhavn 11, not far from the address where the company's headquarters are still located today. Five years later, Sophus Kaastrup-Olsen joined the company as a partner, the name of which was changed to Louis Poulsen & Co. In 1914 Louis Poulsen & Co. published its first catalog in which machines and tools were advertised. In 1917 Sophus Kaastrup-Olsen bought the company shares from Louis Poulsen for 10,000 Danish kroner and became the sole owner of Louis Poulsen & Co.

In 1924 the collaboration between Louis Poulsen and the designer Poul Henningsen began to take part in the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs & Industriels Modernes, an international exhibition for decorative arts and industrial design . Qualified participants were to be found with a tender and Henningsen was one of the winners. In the following year Poul Henningsen's lamp was honored with the gold medal of the exhibition.

In 1926 Louis Poulsen and Poul Henningsen won the tender for a building in Copenhagen that was equipped with PH lights with the three shades.

Louis Poulsen began marketing the lights and the first catalog appeared in Danish, German, English and French. At the time of the Second World War , Louis Poulsen & Co. A / S, now a public limited company , took over the Copenhagen metal goods factory Laurits Henriksen in 1941 and began producing its own lights.

Henningsen designed blackout lighting for the Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen, which allowed the park to remain open until midnight. The light from the lights could not be seen by overflying aircraft.

In 1958 the PH5 lamp appeared. The number “5” in the name refers to the diameter of the lamp: 50 cm. For the 50th anniversary of the lamp, the company presented the lamp in new colors.

The first subsidiary outside Denmark was founded in 1962 in the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1964 and 1975 further subsidiaries followed in France and Sweden . In 1976 the partnership with I / S El-Salg was established. Two years later, Elpefa A / S (formerly Laurits Henriksen) moved into new production facilities in Sluseholmen and took over the production and assembly of all lights. In 1977 Elpefa A / S merged with Louis Poulsen. It was at this time that Louis Poulsen Class B shares were first traded on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. In 1985 a lighting subsidiary in the United States , an electrical goods wholesaler in the Faroe Islands and JO-EL A / S were established. In 1987 a subsidiary in the lighting division was founded in Norway and sales of the Louis Poulsen Group exceeded the 1 billion DKK mark. In the following year, subsidiaries were founded in Australia and the Netherlands. In 1989 Louis Poulsen acquired Skandia Havemann's El A / S and thus 16 sales outlets for the electrical goods wholesaling.

Poul Henningsen would have turned 100 on September 9, 1994. For this reason, Louis Poulsen & Co. A / S published a book on the history of the PH lamp, re-released the PH table lamp and the TREPH pendant lamp from the late 1920s and curated an exhibition of old PH lamps in the museum of Decorative Art (Kunstindustrimuseet) in Copenhagen . In 2014 Poul Henningsen would have been 120 years old. On this occasion, Louis Poulsen brought out the PH 3 1 / 2-3 pendant lamp that Hennigsen designed in 1929.

In 2004 Louis Poulsen Lighting collaborated with Fritz Hansen , Royal Copenhagen and Bang & Olufsen for an exhibition in Tokyo on the occasion of Queen Margrethe II's official visit to Japan in November. The exhibition was entitled "Styling Danish Life" and was designed by the architect Tadao Ando .

Web links

Commons : Louis Poulsen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Annual financial statements 2016
  3. ^ Judith Lembke: We are all Scandinavians. In: FAZ.net . October 5, 2015, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  4. ↑ http://www.schoener-wohnen.de/tipps-trends/tipp-des-tages/38479-rtkl-oliv-und-nude-licht-ph-5-von-poul-henningsen-neuen-farben
  5. ↑ http://www.schoener-wohnen.de/tipps-trends/tipp-des-tages/33716-rtkl-pendelleuchte-ph-3-1-2-3-bei-louis-poulsen