Classic Industrial Design with the Wagenfeld Lampe

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(Free-Press-Release.com) November 18, 2009 -- The rise of the applied art of industrial design in the beginning of the 20th century is due to the tireless efforts of many individuals, but probably none were as well-known or as well-respected as Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Known worldwide as the great pioneer of industrial design, the German designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld created some of the earliest and most iconic pieces of industrial design we know of today. One such popular design by Wagenfeld is the aptly named Wagenfeld Lampe.

Even before he started his professional career as a designer, Wilhelm Wagenfeld was already creating exemplary designs during his studies as a journeyman at the Staatliches Bauhaus or Building School by modernist architect Walter Gropius. Among his early designs is the Wagenfeld Lampe. As its name implies, the Wagenfeld Lampe is a glass and steel table lamp composed of a flat circular base, a cylindrical lampstand, and a translucent glass lampshade on top. Wagenfeld designed the Lampe with his colleague Karl Jucker at the Bauhaus in 1928, and was originally made as the solution to an assignment by Wagenfeld’s professor, the Hungarian painter Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. Because of its close association with the school, the Lampe is also known by its other name of the Wagenfeld Lampe.

When the Wagenfeld Lampe was officially unveiled, both Wagenfeld and Jucker were praised for creating a design that boasted maximum efficiency in the use of materials. The process in which the lampe was created, however, was far from machine-efficient as it was entirely hand-made despite its industrial appearance. Today the Wagenfeld Lampe’s design is reproduced with the help of machinery, but several key parts such as the Lampe’s mouth-blown glass lampshade are still created by hand.

Although Wagenfeld passed away in 1990, his legacy in the Wagenfeld Lampe strongly lives on. Today, reproductions of Wagenfeld’s timeless design are sold as reproductions by various manufacturers.

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