Early life and education

Poul Henningsen was the fourth child of noted author Agnes Henningsen (1868–1962) through an extramarital relationship she had with satirist Carl Ewald (1856-1908) following her first marriage, that had ended in divorce. He and his three half-siblings spent a happy childhood in their mother's tolerant and modern home in Ordrup, that often was visited by the leading literates.

At the age of 16, he invented a self-pumping bicycle that earned him a scholarship from the Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Foundation.^[7]

Between 1911 and 1917, he was trained at Copenhagen Technical College and the Technical University of Denmark, where he studied to be an architect, but never graduated, choosing instead to follow a career as an inventor and painter.^[8][9]

On 10 June 1919, he married his first wife Else Henningsen (née Strøyberg) in Copenhagen.^[10][11]

Early career

He entered into collaboration with the architect Kay Fisker in 1919. From 1920, Henningsen freelanced as an architect and designer.

In 1920, Henningsen created the Slotsholm Lamp (Danish: Slotsholmslygte) which was installed between the Højbro and Holmens bridges along the Christiansborg Slotsplads canal in central Copenhagen. The prototype lamp consisted a lantern with a large top plate shade on a thin post. Henningsen designed the lamp to differ from the traditional design of gas light fixtures. In a column of Politiken in October 1921 where he wrote about the lamp, he criticized the habitual thinking and conservatism that he witnessed in the field of street lighting and emphasized that electric lights, like his Slotsholm Lamp, must have completely different and unfamiliar appearance than gas lighting.^[12] Only seven Slotsholm Lamps were ever created. The failure of the lamps to gain popularity may be due to the manufacturer, Copenhagen Lighting Service, removing some components of the lamp because they caused the light to glare.^[13] This was an issue that Poul Henningsen would later solve and the glare-free design feature would become a signature characteristic of his work.

in 1921, he began his journalistic career when hired by Politiken to cover architecture. His writing emphasized the relationship between societal problems and architecture and the effects of Copenhagen's transformation into an urban metropolis. His journalism often focused on what he perceived to be the short-term thinking of municipal authorities' urban planning.^[14]

In 1925, Henningsen presented the Paris Lamp (Danish: Pariserlampen) at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts at Paris. Henningsen won the gold medal for this creation.^[1] Lamp consisted of 6 shades and was made of silver. An early model of this lamp sold for £87,500 at auction in 2016.^[15]

Creating the three-shade lamp system

After the Paris exhibit, Louis Poulsen and Henningsen were awarded a contract to provide lighting for the newly constructed Forum building in Copenhagen. The building was planned to house an international car exhibition. Rather than using beam lighting, which would illuminate the cars' roofs and hoods but leave the sides of the vehicles dark, Henningsen iterated on the Paris Lamp design to create a lamp that would channel the light in oblique paths.^[16] The Forum lamp had three shades, with diameter proportions of the shades following a 4:2:1 ratio. This ratio allowed the upper shade to reflect 50% of the light and the middle shade and bottom shade to reflect 25% each.^[16] The lamp Henningsen created for Forum would be the basis for the three-shade system. The design was subsequently developed into a comprehensive system of lamps of different sizes, colors, materials, types (floor lamps, table lamps and chandeliers).^[17]

During 1926–27, the Forum lamp design was converted into the rational three-shade system (Danish: 3-skærmssystemet) that could accommodate many different needs. The top, middle, and bottom shades corresponded to the proportions of an approximately 3:2:1 ratio (where the top shade was three-times larger than the bottom shade). (The exception was the largest lamp with 85 cm top shade, which used the 4:2:1 proportions). The first line of lamps were made available in five sizes. The lamps sizes in the system were given rational name scheme: 8/8, 6/6, 5/5, 4/4, and 3/3. The first number in the fraction represents the approximate diameter of the top shade in decimeters. The second number indicates the decimeter used to create the middle and bottom shades using the 3:2:1 ratio. For example: A PH 5/5 lamp has a 50 cm top shade, a 31 cm middle shade (around 2/3 of 50), and a 16.5 cm bottom shade (around 1/3 of 50).^[16]

The original models (with matching top and bottom fractions) worked well as ceiling lamps but they weren't suited for low-hanging use, like over a table, where the illumination area was too narrow and intense. To address this, Louis Poulsen released lamps in 1927 with larger top shade proportions. These wider lamps, like the PH 4/3 and PH 6/3, had a top shade from a larger model and a middle and bottom shade set from a smaller model. For example, a PH 4/3 lamp has a 40 cm top shade but a middle shade (20 cm) and a bottom shade (11.2 cm) created using the 3:2:1 proportions of a 30 cm top shade.^[16]

The lamps were commercially successful and the royalties created the financial safety net for Henningsen to focus on his literary work.^[18]

Literary career

During the 1920s Poul Henningsen had his literary breakthrough. He edited the polemic left-wing periodical, Kritisk Revy (1926–1928, "Critical Review"),^[19] in which he and his colleagues scorned old-fashioned style and cultural conservatism, linking these themes to politics. At the same time he began as a revue writer praising natural behaviour, sexual broad-mindedness, and simple living. He made the Danish revues a political weapon of the left-wing without giving up its character of entertainment (the so-called PH-revues 1929–32).^{[citation needed]}

Henningsen created the PH Grand Piano (Danish: PH Flyglet) in 1930. Poul Henningsen did a groundbreaking design with the PH Grand Piano that is characterised by the transparent glass-lid, the leather rim and the steel legs. The PH Grand Piano departures significantly from the traditional grand piano or the "black box". Poul Henningsen wanted to open up the piano and bring out the beauty of the musical parts. It has become a Danish design icon and reflects an important contribution to the Bauhaus design tradition.^{[citation needed]}

In 1933, he edited his most famous work What About Culture? (Danish: Hvad med Kulturen? ), a polemic, audacious, and urgent criticism of Danish cultural life and its snobism and passion of the past in spite of all the efforts of the Modern Break-Through. He tried to make parallels between prudery, moralizing, and fascist leanings. He also accused the Social Democrats of lacking a firm and consequent cultural line. Together with this book, his activities as a whole brought him a reputation as a semi-communist "fellow traveller". During this period, in fact, he stood near the communists without joining them. He took part in the anti-fascist propaganda, always trying to connect culture and politics.^[20]

Among his other initiatives of this period was Danmarksfilmen (1935), (English: The Film of Denmark), also known as PH's Danmarksfilm. It is an unpretentious and untraditional film portraying life in contemporary Denmark in a lively and slightly disrespectful way in which the visuals are supported by jazz rhythms. Initially, it was condemned and decried by most critics, but later on it became rehabilitated as one of the classic Danish documentary films. He also wrote some movie manuscripts.^{[citation needed]}

Creating PH's House

In 1937, Henningsen designed his family house (referred to as PH's Eget Hus in Danish) on Brogårdsvej 72 in the Gentofte suburb of Copenhagen for his family - consisting of first wife Else Henningsen and their two teenage children Berta and Simon.^[21] The house, which Henningsen jokingly described as the ugliest house in Gentofte, is features exposed concrete blocks construction that may have been a gesture to distance himself from the wealth of his neighbors.^[22]

The plot was purchased from Jens Møller-Jensen larger plot on the condition that they did not obstruct Møller-Jensen's view of Gentofte Lake. To accommodate this request, the entire house was built on a slope and features stairs between nearly every room in the house. Henningsen joked that the house combines the disadvantages of a two-story house with the disadvantages of a one-story house.^[21]

Henningsen only lived in the house for four years. He moved out of the home after he divorced from his first wife Else Henningsen in 1942.^[21] After the divorce, he married physiotherapist Inger Andersen on 31 March 1943.^[11]

The building was listed for conservation protection in 1995.^[23] In 2014, Realdania By & Byg purchased the house and finished restoring it in 2016.^[24]

Fleeing Nazism

Poul Henningsen was a sharp critic of Nazism. In 1938, he was fired from Politiken for his outspoken views while the newspaper chose to take a neutral position on the impending world war.^[25]

On 9 April 1940, German troops invaded and occupied Denmark. During the German Occupation, he kept a low profile but he tried to keep the spirit going by camouflaged resistance poetry. In 1940, Henningsen contributed the song They tie us down mouth and hand [da] to Kjeld Abell's revue Dyveke, in which the subtext called for resistance to the Nazis, while the German censors missed the double meaning and understood the song only at a surface level, as being about the restrictive bonds of marriage.^[25][14][26]

Before the Nazis could deport him to the concentration camps or otherwise endanger him, he secretly left Denmark along with most Jewish Danes in 1943. He fled to neutral Sweden with the Jewish architect Arne Jacobsen and their wives in a rowboat led by a Jewish civil engineer and student rower named Herbert Marcus.^[27][28][29] The drastic move to flee from Denmark likely saved Henningsen's life. The Danish Nazi leader Wilfred Petersen had planned an assassination plot to kill Henningsen and his family by setting their home on fire.^[30] Petersen may have been motivated to murder by PH's Dagmar-revyen (1942), where Henningsen mockingly referred to Petersen as "Vilfred Pedrsen" and comparing him to his rival Frits Clausen in the song And two hearts beat sweetly at the same time (Danish: Så slår to hjerter sødt i samme takt).^[31]

Post-war activities

Henningsen returned to Denmark in 1945.^[25] After the war, he dissociated himself from the communists, who were criticizing him for humanitarianism in his attitude toward the settlement with the Nazis and for his growing skepticism about the Soviet Union, and in many ways, he was isolated. He kept writing and debating, however, and during the 1960s in many ways, the new generation made him something of a guru.^[32]

In 1946, he re-designed the Glass Hall (Danish: Glassalen) for Tivoli in Copenhagen.^[33][34] In 1948, Henningsen jointly published a collection of children's songs with Bernhard Christensen. One of these songs was Oh! Monkey or There was once a monkey (Danish: Oh! Abe or Der var engang en abe) which became extremely popular and is one of the most well-known children's songs in Denmark today.^[35]

In many ways Poul Henningsen is the one who completed the work of Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes (1842–1927). He was somewhat superficial and light, but more modern and less elitist in his views. Being a tease and a provoker who often tried turning concepts upside down (as George Bernard Shaw also did) and whose conclusions might be both somewhat unjust and exaggerated, he was however, a man of firm principles and ideals of a democratic, natural, and tolerant society.^[36]

Poul Henningsen also had a large influence on the Danish company Bang & Olufsen (B&O). In 1954, he wrote a critical review calling a B&O radio "a monster with a bloated belly, an insult to people who like modern furniture." This review was the beginning of a change in product development at B&O where designers would be included in product design.^[37]

In 1958, he created his best-known models: PH Artichoke and PH5.^{[citation needed]} In 1960, Henningsen was again employed by Politiken and the international art industry magazine Mobilia.^[1] He became a member of the Danish Academy in 1963.^[1]

Architecture

• Gyldenholm Allé 18, Gentofte, Copenhagen (1933–34)
• Henne Mølle Å Badehotel [da] in Henne Strand, Varde Municipality, Denmark (1936)^[49]
• NL Dehn's Steam Laundry [da] in Søborg, Denmark (1936)
• Brogårdsvej 72 "PH's House" in Gentofte, Denmark (1937)^[50]
• Glass Hall (Danish: Glassalen), Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark (1956)

Written and visual works

Songs

• Ølhunden [da] (1929), lyricist, sung by Osvald Helmuth
• Man binder os på mund og hånd [da] (1940), lyricist, sung by Liva Weel^[26]
• I dit korte liv [da] (1941), lyricist, sung by Liva Weel^[51]
• For din skyld (1965), lyricist

Screenplays

• Danmarksfilmen (1935), director and writer
• Den opvakte jomfru (1950), writer

Other

• Hva 'mæ kulturen? [What About Culture?] (1933)
• A History of Eroticism (1938) with Ove Brusendorff*
• Love's picture book: The History of Pleasure and Moral Indignation (1958) with Ove Brusendorff*

*Translated to English

Furniture, lamps and product design