The son of famous Danish writer Agnes Henningsen, Poul Henningsen was born in 1894 in Copenhagen. He became the first expert in lighting theory in Denmark. Paul Henningsen studied at the technical school at Frederiksberg in Denmark and the technical college in Copenhagen afterward; however, he did not graduate as an architect. Before venturing into lighting, he practiced traditional functionalistic architecture. However, he is known for his contribution to lighting designs. Poul was very talented because other than being an architect and a designer, he wrote poems for several periodicals and newspapers, scripted some Copenhagen theater revues, and was an editor of the Kritisk Revy magazine. Safe to say that the apple did not fall far from the tree. 

At the beginning of WWII, he was ahead architect at the Tivoli Garden but fled to Sweden and became part of the Danish colony of artists in Sweden. He began a collaboration with Louis Poulsen, a partnership that he had his entire life from 1925. His remarkable designs in lighting resulted from his fascination with the electric light bulb, which was new technology at the time. His partner Louis Poulsen still uses Poul’s work on the relationship between light structures, glare, color reproduction, and shadows compared to why man needs light as a basis for the theories he continued practicing. One of Poul’s light fixtures won the first prize for modern lighting in Paris at the International Exposition of Decorative Arts, becoming the beginning of continuous demand for this light fixture. His goal was to recreate soft gas lighting with electric fixtures. Eventually, he came up with the PH lamp design, which many institutions and homes took up across Scandinavia for use. 

He also produced the Artichoke lamp appropriate for large spaces and commercial settings for elegance and dramatic atmospheric lighting. His lampshades are made by assembling separate elements shaped to cover the bulb and direct the light down on the table without rays being repeatedly reflected.