Jacob Jacobsen

One day in 1937, Jacob (‘Jac’) Jacobsen, who was then an importer of textile machinery, received a shipment of sewing machines from Leicester, England. In the shipping crate he found an extra package containing two lamps. The lamps sparked Jacobsen’s amazement and interest, and he soon gained sole rights to sell the lamp in Norway. But Jacobsen felt the British lamp was somewhat primitive, so he developed a new lamp that was an innovation on the original, also patenting the spring-balanced arm. In the fall of 1938 his lamp started to be produced under the brand name Luxo, which in Latin means “it lights”. The first model was called Luxo 1001 because it allowed users to adjust the light in innumerable (1001) ways. Later the name was changed to L-1. The L-1 became a phenomenal success, and by the 1940s, Jacobsen’s company almost had a monopoly on task lamps throughout Europe. Since 1938, more than 25 million L-1 lamps have been sold. In 1993 the L-1 was awarded the ‘Klassikerprisen for god design’ (Honors Award for Design Excellence). In 2009, Jacobsen’s company, Luxo, was bought by Glamox Group, a Norwegian lighting developer, manufacturer and distributor.