One of the more elusive lights produced by Lyfa in the 1960s is the Seks-tre-pendel (pictured below, left), an unorthodox creation by Ole Panton. Born in Fyn, Denmark in October 1938 when his brother Verner was 12 years old, Ole followed in his sibling’s footsteps to became an architect and designer, and initially made his mark in the design of children’s playgrounds. His first commission was for Bispebjerg Hospital’s child psychiatric clinic, where he created what was considered to be an entirely new type of playground, offering inspiration for both children and their educators. 

In the mid 1960s, together with Louis Weisdorf, Ole Panton helped to found Det Lille Teater, a children’s theatre in Copenhagen. The pair led the refurbishment and decoration of the theatre premises in Lavendelstraede, putting to use seats that had been removed from the Glassalen in Tivoli Gardens and were about to be thrown away. It is an interesting coincidence that Panton’s Seks-tre-pendel and Weisdorf’s Ekko (below, right) were both produced by Lyfa in the late 60s, and that the two lights were jointly advertised. The only mention of lighting in Weisdorf’s account of the creation of Det Lille Teater is that Louis Poulsen donated a number of PH lamps to the project, but the unconventional and theatrical character of these two lights leads us to wonder whether their origins might lie in the Lille Teater project.