Our blog about Danish modern lighting and other midcentury design

The precursor to Bent Karlby's Pan series for Lyfa

modblog 22/04/2010 0

Most collectors of midcentury Danish lighting are aware of Bent Karlby's designs for Lyfa, which inc...

Verner Panton and Poulsen's LamPetit

modblog 25/04/2010 0

Did Verner Panton design Louis Poulsen's versatile LamPetit? Certainly the compact little lamp is un...

The uniquely Danish concept of hygge

modblog 15/07/2010 0

From time to time we hear someone in Denmark describing a vintage light – usually one that gives out...

Fog & Mørup’s iF Product Design Awards

modblog 20/05/2010 0

Initiated in 1953, the International Forum (iF) Product Design Awards are presented annually to prod...

The Louis Poulsen Bornholmpendel

modblog 03/06/2010 0

The Bornholmpendel is rarely seen today, but in 1967 it was chosen by Louis Poulsen to feature on th...

Fog & Mørup's 1970s collaboration with Arabia

modblog 03/07/2010 0

In the mid-1970s Fog & Mørup made a brief return to its roots in ironmongery when it embarked upon a...

Fog & Mørup lights in Brio miniatures

modblog 31/12/2010 0

In the early 1970s Swedish toy manufacturer Brio Scanditoy Mobilia produced miniature versions of so...

A tale of two Topans: the Pendant & the Spot

modblog 23/06/2011 0

Verner Panton’s futuristic 1959 Topan light design for Louis Poulsen has rarely been out of the lime...

The forgotten art of Oluf Gravesen

modblog 29/10/2010 0

Danish advertising for items of domestic design in the 1960s and 1970s often followed a very specifi...

Three of a kind

modblog 28/04/2010 0

Danish lighting companies Louis Poulsen, Lyfa and Nordisk Solar Compagni have all produced lamps wit...

Hvidt, Hvidt & Mølgaard's Safari

modblog 07/05/2010 0

Nordisk Solar Compagni’s Safari pendant light, pictured below, is often attributed to Jørgen Gammelg...

Henningsen & Schwalbe’s Kassablanka

modblog 31/05/2010 0

Constructed from four interlocking cubes with cutouts that allow only indirect light to emerge, Simo...

Panton and PH weren't just good friends

modblog 11/05/2011 0

The family connection between two of the great Danish lighting designers is widely known – indeed, a...

Looks like Bent Karlby for Lyfa, but isn't!

modblog 17/06/2010 0

With its structure of concentric metal squares and the light effects produced by the overlapping lay...

The 1970 launch of F&M’s Formland

modblog 27/05/2010 0

Bent Rooke’s fascinating Tidsfasetter, a collation of art and design news items from Scandinavia str...

Jo Hammerborg's Zenith pendant

modblog 21/06/2010 0

One of the most frequently misattributed Fog & Mørup lights is the Zenith, pictured below, whose des...

Ole Panton's Seks-tre-pendel

modblog 14/06/2010 0

One of the more elusive lights produced by Lyfa in the 1960s is the Seks-tre-pendel (pictured below,...

Jo Hammerborg and the Formland lamp series

modblog 05/12/2012 0

The information that emerged from our correspondence with the Hammerborg family over the past 18 mon...

The real story of the Carl Thore lights

modblog 10/12/2012 0

There is an often-repeated urban myth that the multilayered pendant lamps usually known as Carl Thor...

Preben Dal: the mystery man of lights

modblog 20/05/2010 0

Who was Preben Dal? Nobody seems to know anything about the man who designed the wonderful Symfoni s...

Hidden treasure in the F&M Orient

modblog 26/07/2010 0

Few people know that when Jo Hammerborg‘s Orient pendant light first appeared on the market in the e...

Finn Juhl and the drivers of vintage value

modblog 08/06/2011 0

The perceived value (and so the price) of a vintage Danish light is usually fairly closely related t...

Jo Hammerborg’s earliest F&M designs

modblog 19/07/2010 0

When Jo Hammerborg joined Fog & Mørup in 1957 he lost no time in transforming the company’s product ...

Lyfa’s iF Product Design Awards

modblog 28/06/2010 0

The International Forum (iF) Product Design Awards have been presented annually since 1953 to produc...

The spiral that's not a Lyfa Weisdorf

modblog 22/07/2010 0

It's not uncommon to see one or other of the two spiral-structured lamps pictured below being attrib...

Jo Hammerborg’s Sera and Dano lights

modblog 12/07/2010 0

One of several themes that ran through Jo Hammerborg’s work at Fog & Mørup during the 1960s was that...

Zero: probably Fog & Mørup's largest and rarest light

modblog 06/07/2010 0

The multi-cylindrical Zero (pictured below), a classic Jo Hammerborg creation dating from late 1970 ...

Verner Panton’s Panthella 3-light

modblog 27/08/2010 0

When people come across a vintage Panthella for the first time they often think there’s something wr...

Looks like a PH 4/3 but isn't!

modblog 07/08/2010 0

The Penta (below) is a little-known Fog & Morup light designed by Jo Hammerborg and first appearing ...

1960s prism lights by Werner Schou for Coronell

modblog 20/08/2010 0

The lights pictured below (reproduced from a February 1973 Coronell of Denmark catalogue in our poss...

Fog & Mørup’s 1969 Rainbow Line

modblog 16/08/2010 0

In 1969 four Fog & Mørup light models – Andreas Hansen’s Falcon and Jo Hammerborg’s Juno, Zone and E...

A Tivoli tangle

modblog 12/08/2010 0

The diamond-shaped raw metal wall light pictured below was produced in the 1970s by Holm Sørensen A/...

Five of 100 great Danish designs of 1974

modblog 02/08/2010 0

In 1974 a special edition of Mobilia magazine was dedicated to showcasing, as the title of the issue...

Poul Henningsen’s lighting manifesto

modblog 18/03/2011 0

In November 1966 Danish homestyle magazine Bo Bedre published a feature by Kirsten Bundgaard in whic...

How Fog & Mørup’s Formland avoids dazzle

modblog 24/09/2010 0

An early 70s edition of Design from Scandinavia reveals the material that architects Sidse Werner an...

Quality System – back from obscurity

modblog 16/09/2010 0

From its inception in 1965 until its demise in 1985, Danish lighting company Quality System was huge...

The origins of the Danish star light

modblog 21/11/2012 0

A couple of years ago we wrote about the fact that we had been unable to find reliable information a...

Hvidt & Mølgaard’s Fog & Mørup light design

modblog 17/12/2010 0

Peter Hvidt (1916–1986) and his business partner Orla Mølgaard (aka Orla Mølgaard-Nielsen) (1907–199...

Kastrup-Holmegaard’s Havanna series for F&M

redvangang 21/05/2011 0

The Kastrup-Holmegaard glassworks produced many different individually mouth-blown glass lamps for F...

Danish modern space stations?

modblog 25/04/2011 0

In September 1972, journalist Bengt Rooke reported in Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that a 60-stron...

Colour coordination in Danish lights

modblog 12/11/2010 0

In the late 1960s both Louis Poulsen and Fog & Mørup launched lines of assorted lamp models in coord...

End of an era: Tivoli's Divan 2 closes

modblog 04/04/2011 0

When Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens opens its gates on 14 April for the 2011 summer season, the doors t...

Danlite Inc is Fog & Mørup USA

modblog 11/03/2011 0

Now and again it’s possible to find vintage lights by a New York-based company called Danlite Inc be...

Jo Hammerborg’s Saturn series

modblog 24/08/2010 0

One particular group of Fog & Mørup lights by Jo Hammerborg – which for convenience here we will cal...

Poulsen’s IT lamp and the ghost of PH

modblog 07/01/2011 0

In view of their seminal influence both in Denmark and internationally, it is no surprise that Poul ...

The Senior and the President

modblog 03/03/2011 0

In the 1960s Jo Hammerborg designed two table lamps for Fog & Mørup which are easily and often confu...

Jo Hammerborg’s smallest light?

modblog 04/02/2011 0

One of Jo Hammerborg’s earliest designs for Fog & Mørup, the Kubus (pictured below in an F&M adverti...

Fog & Morup’s Chrome and Golden Lines

modblog 24/02/2011 0

We wrote in an earlier post about cross-model colour coordination at Fog & Morup under Jo Hammerborg...

The price of a gold-plated Fog & Mørup Semi

modblog 14/04/2011 0

Following the post we wrote recently about Fog & Mørup’s Golden Line, the range of 24-carat gold-pla...

The Schlegel lamp and its Tarok lookalike

modblog 28/01/2011 0

Fritz Schlegel’s classic bell-like light for Lyfa, the Schlegel-lampe, designed in 1938, inspired a ...

Frandsen’s Fibonacci needs clear bulbs

modblog 26/11/2010 0

Danish architect Sophus Frandsen created the Fibonacci light, his timeless classic for Fog & Mørup, ...

A little-known light by Preben Dal

modblog 21/01/2011 0

Featured in Danish homestyle magazine Bo Bedre in January 1962 when his celebrated Symfoni (penultim...

Distinguishing the Karlebos from the Falcons

modblog 22/10/2010 0

We have often seen the light pictured in the first image below described as a Falcon, designed by An...

Piet Hein’s 1969 Ra lamp for Lyfa

modblog 02/09/2010 0

Bengt Rooke’s Tidsfasetter, a collation of historical art and design news items from Scandinavia, in...

Weisdorf’s Konkylie was made for trees

modblog 06/09/2010 0

Louis Weisdorf’s extraordinary Konkylie ("Conch Shell") light was originally designed for Copenhagen...

The difference between Nordisk Solar and Anvia star lamps

modblog 19/11/2010 0

The star-shaped lacquered steel pendant light pictured below seems to embody the space-age style of ...

Hans Due’s Optima was white at launch

modblog 30/09/2010 0

Bengt Rooke’s Tidsfasetter, a collation of vintage Scandinavian art and design news, includes an ite...

A rare 1960s wall lamp from Fog & Mørup

modblog 14/01/2011 0

At first glance the lights below, discovered in Finland, might be mistaken for a wall-mounted versio...

F&M Hekla’s fiery Icelandic connection

modblog 14/10/2010 0

It is widely known that Fog & Mørup’s mid-1960s Hekla pendant light was created by two furniture des...