How Anglepoise’s Navigation Edition Lamp makes an archival design timeless
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The reimagined World War II-era icon combines historic engineering with contemporary design touches
Among Art Deco contemporaries, George Carwardine’s Anglepoise lamp stands out. Rather than following the aesthetic sensibilities of his day, in which form and decoration reigned, Carwardine’s lamp was rooted in inventive engineering principles and shaped by the tasks it was meant to enlighten.
A favorite of designers and draughtspeople working late into the evening, Anglepoise lamps became the quintessential task lamp with their focused light beams and finger-light adjustability. When Great Britain entered World War II, the lamps took on a new task: lighting charting tables for airplane navigators. Now, almost 100 years after Anglepoise took to the sky, its Original 315 Desk Lamp - Navigation Edition recalls the history of the iconic design while updating it for use today.
As the extension, so the force
Though early marketing claimed the Anglepoise was inspired by the movement of a human arm, touch an Anglepoise, and it’s clear: it’s all about the springs. Springs had been around long before George Carwardine approached Herbert Terry & Sons in Redditch, England, but Terry’s steel-coiled springs offered the quality and consistency Carwardine needed for his new spring-balancing mechanism.
“It is born out of pure engineering principles. That’s all there is to it. It’s all about how you balance an object in space.”
Carwardine was an engineer by trade, working in various industrial workshops before joining Horstman Car Company (then spelled Horstmann—the second “n” was dropped during WWI to avoid sounding too German) and working his way up to Chief Designer. In 1926, Carwardine went independent, setting up Cardine Accessories and developing car suspension part systems. He returned to Horstman briefly but left again in 1931, and in 1932, he filed a patent for a mechanism whereby springs “produce a unidirectional constant force for the purpose of counteracting the pull of gravitation.”
Most springs are logarithmic, requiring an increasing amount of force to continue extending the spring. But close-coiled springs, or springs that are twisted as they’re coiled, store energy within the coil and require a linear amount of force to pull on them, making them just as easy to pull whether they’re closed or extended. Carwardine’s design, “Improvements in Elastic Equipoising Systems,” became the foundation of Anglepoise lamps, using this principle to stabilize the lamp’s arm as it extended and contracted and to keep it in place once adjusted.
Original blueprint drawing of an Anglepoise lamp. (Image via Anglepoise)
The original Model 1208 was a four-spring lamp—two at the base and two at the elbow—and was meant for use in factories, workshops, and laboratories. First called the Equipoise, it was manufactured by Carwardine’s team of five, but demand soon outpaced their production scale. Carwardine also couldn’t trademark the name, as “equipoise” is a common word. Terry’s, which was looking for products to sell that used its springs, offered Carwardine 6% commission on retail sales in exchange for the license for his design, which Carwardine accepted. And in 1934, after changing the name to Anglepoise, Terry’s began production.
Illuminating history
Just a year later, Carwardine and Terry’s released the Model 1227, which became the standard Anglepoise lamp. Designed for a more domestic setting, it had three springs rather than four, allegedly to avoid the top springs from getting caught in women’s hair. But it still retained its self-explanatory movement system of finely tuned springs and levers—so finely tuned that the earliest models would lift up without the lightbulb weighing them down. Even today, Anglepoise recommends lightbulbs within the range of 25-45 grams for the Original 1227, or 0.88-2.11 ounces per its U.S. guide.
As Great Britain joined World War II, Anglepoise lamps became part of the war effort. Domestically, they were sold as “blackout lights,” allowing people to complete nighttime tasks without violating blackout regulations made in response to German air raids. A specially engineered version was also brought into airplane cockpits.
Historical aerial Anglepoise lamp in a Sunderland flying boat (Image via Anglepoise)
Shedding the heavy cast iron base for a mount and the steel arms for aluminum, the aerial lamp, or 5C/1079, was lightweight enough not to weigh down the plane and avoided magnetic disturbances to the compass and other equipment. It had a smaller shadehead to avoid glare on other parts of the plane, and its friction joints kept it stable against the bucking and corkscrewing of combat airplanes’ flight. After the war, Anglepoise continued to use aluminum in its lamps, as export restrictions made steel available only to companies that exported at least 75% of their production.
Designing beyond time
In bringing the aerial lamp into the present as the Navigation Edition Lamp, Anglepoise adjusted the design for contemporary needs. Though it keeps the narrower, two-step shade of the WWII-era lamp, the Navigation Edition uses a GU10 spotlight bulb, which is far brighter than what would’ve been practical in an airplane cockpit.
Still, the lightbulb, along with the narrower shade, retains the spirit of the aerial lamp and harkens back to the utility of the original Model 1208 for people burning the midnight oil, allowing for a brighter and more directional light than any other Anglepoise lamp. The focused shade also allows people working in a shared space to use multiple lamps without stray light beams cluttering each other’s vision, and the Navigation Edition brings in contemporary touches with dimming and color temperature control.
Historical aerial Anglepoise lamp with the mounted base (Image via Anglepoise)
The Navigation Edition also brings back the cast iron square base—though not the stepped style of the Original 1227—with a matte black arm that contrasts with the historic aluminum shade. In the dark, cramped confines of an airplane cockpit, the aerial lamp’s lighter shade stood in contrast with its darker arm, allowing for easier visibility.
But Anglepoise’s relationship with its past extends beyond searching for sources of inspiration.
“The act of repair is an act of love”
Though the Livermore lightbulb has been shining since 1901 (and is viewable via webcam feed), one of the first instances of planned obsolescence was in the lighting industry. In 1925, the Phoebus Cartel limited the lifespan of bulbs to 1,000 hours as the industry standard and fined companies that manufactured bulbs that lasted longer.
To Simon Terry, the owner and brand and marketing director Anglepoise, this is antithetical to humans’ role as custodians of the earth and of future generations. The engineering behind Anglepoise lamps allows them to be assembled, disassembled, and repaired, and the lamps’ lifetime warranty encourages customers to engage with Anglepoise’s repair service. The company also reengineers spare parts for old lamps and rewires products up to 90 years old, and it has completed more than 500 repairs since the service’s launch in 2020.
What becomes a timeless design can be difficult to predict, but in Anglepoise lamps, it all comes back to engineering. The same principles that gave rise to the now-iconic silhouette and guided airplane pilots in the 1930s light the way for users of all kinds today.
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