Although he has made several designs in his career, German industrial designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld is most remembered for his iconic Wagenfeld Lamp. Also called the Bahaus Lamp, the Wagenfeld Lampe is a steel and glass table consisting of a rounded, flat base, a long cylindrical shaft, and the ball-shaped lampshade. Wagenfeld designed the Lampe with Karl Jucker in 1924 while at the prestigious Bahaus School of design in Germany. It was said that Wagenfeld, who was studying as a journeyman at Bahaus at the time, built the lamp as a solution to an exercise given to him by Bahaus administrator and painter Lazlo Moholy-Nagy.

The Wagenfeld Lampe is produced in two variations: a steel version and a glass version. In the steel version of the Lampe, the shaft and base is constructed from high-grade steel plated with nickel that gave the metal a pleasing yellowish patina. On the other hand, the glass version has the stand and base made from thick glass. The shaft also has a nickel-plated tube at its core in which the electrical feed line is housed, giving the lamp a somewhat X-ray appearance. Glass variations of the Lampe are generally more expensive than the steel version, as it is more difficult to manufacture. However, both versions feature a milky-white lampshade made of translucent glass to help diffuse the light evenly across a room.

The lamp’s straightforward geometric shapes, coupled with the fine craftsmanship distinctive of Bahaus craftsmen, garnered Wagenfeld and Jucker critical acclaim for its relative simplicity and efficient use of materials. It should also be noted that although the Wagenfeld Lampe was inspired by industrial products, it was entirely made by hand right down to the grinding and polishing. This hands-on approach to making the Wagenfeld Lamps still continues today, especially since some of the parts (such as the lampshade, which is mouth-blown) need to be hand-made in order to assure quality. Today the Wagenfeld Lampe is produced by Technolumen, a company based in Bremen, Germany. Technolumen acquired the rights to make the Lampe from Wagenfeld shortly after its establishment in 1980, and was the company’s first and sole product for several years. The company later expanded their catalogue however, but Wagenfeld’s design still remains as its flagship product. Currently both the glass and steel variations of the Wagenfeld Lampe are produced by Technolumen, and both are made to comply with stringent German quality control standards.