Poul Henningsen was born in Copenhagen as a son of the famous Danish actor Agnes Henningsen. He didn’t graduate in architecture, but studied at the technical school Fredriksberg from 1911 to 1914 and then at the technical college in Copenhagen from 1914 to 1917.
He also began using traditional functionalistic architecture. His professional interests however soon concentrated on light design – and that is what made him famous. He enlarged his working areas on writings and became a journalist and writer. He was a leading architect at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen for a short time when the Second World War began. But as well as many other creative people, he had to run from Denmark during the German occupation soon becoming an important part of the Danish artists group, lived in Sweden.
His life-long cooperation with Louis Poulsen Lighting began 1925 and until his death. Louis Poulsen Lightning still profits from this genius cooperation today. Poul Henningsen also was the first editor of the business magazine “NYT”. The CEO from Poulsen of that Danish magazine, Sophus Kaastrup-Olsen, giving the magazine to PG as a gift (his criticism might have been too radical).
Poul Henningsen ‘s pioneers work regarding the relations between light structures, shadows, mirrors and light – compared with demands of light, the basic stone of the light theory is still used at Louis Poulsen Lightning.