Softness By Design
Natural light, creating shadows and contrast
Poul Henningsen: The Quiet Power of Light
With winter finally behind us, April has arrived gently—exceptionally mild and full of promise. The clocks have changed, the days stretch longer, and early summer sunshine floods into the home. It’s a time of renewed light, not just in our surroundings, but in our mood. This shift—subtle yet transformative—brings to mind the work of Poul Henningsen, a designer who understood light not merely as a function, but as a feeling.
Few designers have shaped the way we experience light quite like Poul Henningsen (1894–1967). Henningsen didn’t simply design lamps—he reimagined the very nature of illumination. His work was a quiet revolution against the harsh glare of electric bulbs, a movement toward softness, balance, and atmosphere.
Born in Denmark, a country where light is a seasonal luxury and darkness a familiar companion, Henningsen’s sensitivity to illumination was deeply rooted in place. In winter, when daylight can be fleeting and overcast skies linger, light becomes more than just a utility—it becomes psychological, even spiritual. Henningsen believed the new electric light of the early 20th century was too crude—too blunt for the spaces where people lived, thought, and gathered. He sought to recreate the nuanced warmth of candlelight and gaslight—not out of nostalgia, but from a deeply human sense of what light should feel like.
Long before it was backed by research, Henningsen grasped what modern psychologists have since come to understand: light influences not only how a space looks, but how it makes us feel and behave. The direction, intensity, and softness of light can make a room feel intimate or open, calming or clinical. It can foster conversation, focus attention, or offer quiet sanctuary. Henningsen’s genius lay in designing light that worked with human nature—not against it.
PH5 Image By Holger Ellgaard
Beyond Brightness
In the decades since Henningsen’s time, lighting has grown more accessible and more ubiquitous. As technology has advanced and costs have dropped, our homes have gradually filled with recessed downlights—uniform grids of illumination that flatten space and overwhelm subtlety. Rooms are often flooded with cold, directionless light that erases shadow, depth, and mood.
But light is not just about brightness. It’s about nuance. Shadow, after all, gives form its presence. Without contrast, a space loses its drama—its sense of intimacy and invitation. Henningsen understood this instinctively. He designed with shadow in mind, allowing pools of warmth to gather where they were needed, while letting other areas rest in gentle shade.
Today, as artifical lighting becomes more prolific but less considered, it feels like the right moment to return to these principles. To move away from sterile, undifferentiated lighting and embrace a more sculptural, atmospheric approach—one where light is shaped thoughtfully and purposefully, with the human experience at its core.
Fossilised Golden Spiral
The Science of Softness
Henningsen’s lamps may appear effortless, but behind their soft glow lies a meticulous, almost obsessive pursuit of balance. His approach was not simply artistic—it was deeply scientific. Central to his philosophy was the idea that light needed shaping. Left to its own devices, electric light was harsh, indiscriminate. But with care and calculation, it could be transformed.
The shades of his now-iconic three-part system were not arranged arbitrarily. Their curves were based on logarithmic spirals—mathematical forms found throughout nature in shells, flowers, and galaxies. These spirals allowed each layer to guide light outward and downward with an even, diffused quality. The result wasn’t just the absence of glare—it was the presence of atmosphere. Light faded gently into shadow, rather than cutting sharply across a surface.
In designing the PH 5, Henningsen refined this further, adding additional shades to control stray beams and ensure that no matter where one stood, the bulb itself remained hidden. A small upward-facing shade subtly lit the ceiling, while internal surfaces were tinted in red and blue to compensate for the yellow cast of incandescent bulbs—an act of quiet correction, invisible yet vital.
What’s remarkable is not just the function of these features, but the feeling they evoke. Henningsen didn’t want light that demanded attention. He wanted light that supported life. His was a kind of engineering in service of emotion—a calculated, graceful shaping of experience. In this, he anticipated what researchers and designers now confirm: that how we light a space changes how we feel within it.
An Enduring Glow
More than half a century after his death, Poul Henningsen’s lamps still hang above dining tables, reading chairs, and windowsills—not as nostalgic ornaments, but as reminders of a more considered approach to living with light. His designs endure not just for their form, but for their feeling. They speak to something we still crave: warmth, calm, and clarity in a world often flooded with too much of the wrong kind of brightness.
Henningsen’s legacy offers more than aesthetics. It offers guidance. In an age of endless lighting options—where bulbs can shift colour at the tap of a screen and ceilings bristle with downlights—his principles feel more relevant than ever. We can take cues from his designs not just in what they look like, but in what they value.
We can choose lighting that invites, not overwhelms. We can layer light—using a combination of focused task lighting, soft ambient glow, and occasional uplight to build atmosphere gently. We can place light with intent, honouring the role of shadow and the rhythm of natural light. And above all, we can think of lighting not as a technical necessity, but as an emotional and architectural element—something that shapes how we live, not just what we see.
To live with better light is to live more attentively. And in that, Henningsen’s work continues to glow—quietly, beautifully, enduringly.
