Midgard: Illuminating the Century of Light

When one thinks about the legacy of the Bauhaus, a lot of people think in terms of chairs: Marcel Breuer’s 51C “Cesca" Chair, Mies van Der Rohe’s MR20 Chair, or (for those really in the know) Mart Stam’s S34.

However, electric lighting was arguably a more important category in this era of design history.

Many of the Bauhaus’ leading figures: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Walter Gropius, Marianne Brandt, Gunta Stolz, and Josef & Anni Albers were obsessed with light, best encapsulated by Moholy-Nagy’s bold proclamation:

By 1925, practitioners at the Bauhaus were going to great effort to find out everything they could about electric lighting. They embarked on excursions, organized by Walter Gropius, to Osram’s Lichthaus lighting centre in Berlin, and the well-known lighting firm Körting & Mathiesen in Leipzig.

It was perhaps during one of these trips that leading Bauhaus figureheads first encountered the progenitor of articulated lighting: Curt Fischer. While it’s unclear when and how Curt Fischer came into contact with Bauhaus designers, records do show an exchange of letters between Gropius and Fischer, dated between 1927 and 1931.

Unlike chairs, which have existed for the duration of human history, electric light was a relatively new, and therefore modern, invention: an ideal proving ground for the fledgling design school eager to prove its metal.

As a material, light poses a range of technical challenges for designers to manipulate.

First of all, you need a continual source of light, which was not possible until the invention of the Edison bulb in 1879-1880. Candles flicker. The sun sets. Fires burn out. The creation of artificial light changed the game, allowing for an uninterrupted source of light spanning all hours of the day.

With this technical limitation overcome, the next question is where you want the light to go and how you want it to behave: Do you want it diffuse and atmospheric, like a candle? Or focused and directional, like a spotlight? In the case of the latter, how do you ensure that the body of the worker does not obstruct the light?

Understood in this way, design decisions regarding a light’s housing are no longer aesthetic, but eminently practical. The best lighting designs, then, are not necessarily the formally innovative, but rather functionally elegant, showcasing how deftly a designer can shape and manipulate light as a material.

Though the minds at the Bauhaus devoted considerable effort toward solving these challenges, they would end up conceding that the most elegant answers to these qualities had been realized, not by designers, but engineers. Especially Curt Fischer, arguably the inventor of the adjustable lighting category and founder of Midgard.

Curt Fischer was an accomplished tinkerer who would go on to file 160 patents over the course of his lifetime. During the first world war, he turned carriages into mobile radio stations and developed early aerial radio communication for the Zeppelin, long before the Hindenburg Disaster put a damper on that particular form of aerial transportation.

Masters, students, and proteges at the Bauhaus were among the earliest adopters of Midgard’s groundbreaking designs. When the Bauhaus moved into its new buildings in Dessau in 1926, Midgard lamps were first among its furnishings.

The TYP 113 table lamp was a particular favorite, utilized in the home and office of Walter Gropius and Josef Albers, as well as the studios and apartments of Bauhaus students, like Gunta Stölzl and Marianne Brandt.

Midgard’s lights symbolized everything the Bauhaus aspired to realize as part of their utopian project: it was modern, mechanical, affordable, adaptable, simple, and innovative. Bauhaus masters and students alike did their best to copy the design, giving credence to Pablo Picasso’s often quoted, but frequently misinterpreted maxim: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

Speaking to the East German design magazine form+zweck in 1979, Marianne Brandt–one of the Bauhaus foremost students and one of just a few women–explained:

Brandt’s enthusiasm explains why, in 1926, the Bauhaus developed NEUES WOHNEN, a series of educational and advertising films produced by Humboldt Film GmbH, prominently showcasing Midgard’s TYP 114 as an articulation of their radical design philosophy.

Brandt’s enthusiasm explains why, in 1926, the Bauhaus developed NEUES WOHNEN, a series of educational and advertising films produced by Humboldt Film GmbH, prominently showcasing Midgard’s light as the articulation of their radical design philosophy.

However, the dreams of Bauhaus students and teachers to realize a lamp that could rival Midgard’s would be cut short.

As the rumblings of WWII began, the Dessau Bauhaus was abruptly closed by the Nazi-controlled city council in 1932. The school temporarily relocated to Berlin, as a private institution, in a desperate attempt to survive. When Hitler seized power, in early 1933, the fledgling school was shut down for good and the school’s faculty and student body was forced to flee to America. 

Despite the fact options to transport possessions were extremely limited, many succeeded in ferrying their Midgard lights across the Atlantic.

László Moholy-Nagy installed his Midgard TYP 113 in his director’s room at the New Bauhaus in Chicago (now IIT Institute of Design). Josef Albers took his with him to Black Mountain College, while Walter Gropius brought his with him to Harvard.

After the War, Fischer returned to tinkering, developing the spring-balanced arm, now considered the archetypal desk light, which remains in production to this day.

Unfortunately, Fischer died in 1956, leading his son Wolfgang to take over the company until it was expropriated by the East German state in 1972.

Operating under the name VEB Industrieleuchtenbau Auma, the enterprise remained under the direction of Wolfgang Fischer. However, the death of the company’s leading figurehead and conditions in Germany gave rise to a fallow period. After the fall of the Berlin wall, the reunification of Germany, and subsequent re-privatization, the company’s long-term viability was at stake.

In 2015, David Einsiedler and Joke Rasch purchased the company from the third generation of the Fischer family ownership, and tapped Kristin Seel as a third partner.

The new owners jump-started production of the brand’s historic lamps using all-original tooling, and began mining the extensive Midgard archive, a private collection of more than 200 original designs. They decided to keep production based in Germany and reestablished relations with local suppliers, including some second- and third-generation craftsmen, whose families have been working for the brand since its founding.

While preserving the original designs, the new owners also began to look toward the future.

Not content to pigeonhole the recently rekindled brand within its Bauhaus past, Einsiedler and Rasch looked for forward-thinking design talent to create new collections that complemented the company’s existing catalogue of adaptable lighting solutions.

The duo ended up tapping Stefan Diez and Sebastain Herkner to design their inaugural collections.

The AYNO collection, by Stefan Diez, set out to update the iconic Arco light, designed by the radical Italian designer Achille Castiglioni in 1962.

Diez noted that the graceful arc of Castiglioni’s design is encumbered by the near 200 lb marble block, making it unappealing to a more itinerant, younger demographic. Castiglioni’s original design decisions also limited the flexibility and directionality of the light, which can only be adjusted using the metal hood, which is prone to get quite hot to the touch.

Finally, the new design easily breaks down into four component pieces, making it suitable for transport and adaptable within the more confined living quarters of today.

Meanwhile, the LOJA collection, designed by Sebastain Herkner, resurrects the dramatic, graceful silhouette of a sunhat.

Rarify is honored to serve as the exclusive distributor of Midgard’s legacy and contemporary designs throughout North America. You can browse the full collection here.