Hans Bergström’s designs are just as scarce today as the information available on the Swedish designer despite their undeniable visual and material quality. Guided by the mantra, “Light must be white and shine freely,” he designed and produced functional yet modern fixtures that were intended to brighten up entire spaces.

Hans Bergström was the founder and creative director of the lighting firm Ateljé Lyktan, which he founded in Åhus in 1934. Bergström created amazing lighting in various shapes and forms, some of which were serially produced. As this “C-1162” model showcases, Ateljé Lyktan was rightfully renowned for the poetic beauty and high quality of its products. Bergström had a modernist approach based on quality and architectural precision, and was the favourite lighting designer of many fellow architects, among them Bruno Mathsson. This wall lamp model is among his most distinctive designs and represents the style of the designer in its purest form, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality. The luminaire consists of two acrylic glass shades connected by a cross-shaped brass body. The shades have a peculiar shape that resembles folded paper. The resulting visual effect is further enhanced when the light brightens it up from inside. This freer form is contrasted by the firm brass body that is symmetrical and balances the ratio of straight and more organic lines. The crossing tubes are held by a small brass base that doesn’t take the attention away and serves its functional role perfectly.

This lamp has a fundamentally modern look that shows off Bergström’s creativity that he always paired with structural precision and material quality. The Swedish designer was Ateljé Lyktan’s creative director for three decades, and up until the beginning of the 1960s, the company’s sole designer. A great many of Bergström’s designs were created in small series, making them rare finds today.

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SOLD

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Condition:
In good vintage condition. Wear consistent with age and use. The brass has a beautiful patina.

Dimensions:

21.06 in W x 7.87 in D x 10.23 in H

53.5 cm W x 20 cm D x 26 cm H

About the designer:

Swedish architect-designer Hans Bergström was born in 1910 in Karlshamn. After completing secondary school in 1927, he worked for several years at the Ystad-Metall metal manufactory in Ystad, where he designed lamps, mirrors, bottles, jars, and bowls. In 1929, he enrolled in Stockholm’s Konstindustriell Skola (now known as Konstfack), notably designing a chandelier (1932) for a church in Iggesund for his thesis project. After graduating in 1933, Bergström returned for a short time to Ystad-Metall before establishing his own lighting firm, ateljé Lyktan, in 1934 in Helsingborg. In 1935, he and his wife Vera relocated the atelier to Åhus, on Sweden’s southeast coast. Not long after, Bergström also established a showroom in neighboring city Kristianstad.

In the mid-1940s, Bergström began designing lights with fabric lampshades as an alternative to metal, which was in short supply due to the war. With the introduction of plastic in the 1950s, Bergström experimented with new lighting techniques. He developed a new method that involved spraying plastic threads onto a rotating wire frame, which resulted in both a patent and the spherical Model no. 166 Light (1952).

Bergström is most well-known for his minimalist Model 181 Lamp (1950), also known as Struten, which was awarded a Gold Medal at Milan’s Triennale in 1954. Sometime in the early 1960s, Bergström retired and Philips’s Design Manager, Anders Pehrson, became ateljé Lyktan’s Head of Operations in Åhus, steering the company away from bespoke services toward mass production.

Bergström passed away in Karlshamn in 1996. In 2009, ateljé Lyktan celebrated its 75th anniversary and published the retrospective book Ljuset ska vara vitt och lysa fritt–Historien om ateljé Lyktan by Johan Jansson and Staffan Bengtsson. Some of Bergström’s designs remain in production with ateljé Lyktan today—and hundreds (dating back to 1934) are catalogued in the ateljé Lyktan’s archives.