Friis & Moltke Design

https://friis-moltke.dk/

FRIIS & MOLTKE have played a huge role in Lampas’ design activities right from the start in the 1970s. Lampas’ founder, Kjell Berentzen, visited the practice one day and convinced Elmar Moltke and Ove Rix that they should work together. Berentzen was attracted by FRIIS & MOLTKE’s holistic approach to architecture, and the practice could see the value of a permanent producer for innovative lamp design that matched the firm’s simple, brutalist style of building.

Lampas still produces a number of characteristic lamps from FRIIS & MOLTKE Design, including LIBER, ADDO and ACTA. The virtually legendary LIBER mailbox is also a result of this close, long-standing partnership.

FRIIS & MOLTKE Design is rooted in an in-depth understanding of the interaction between architecture, space planning and design. For Head of Design Mikkel Bahr, who graduated in industrial design from Aarhus School of Architecture in 2003, the link with architecture has a major influence on the agency’s work. FRIIS & MOLTKE’s lighting design is based on the legacy from the practice’s best architects.

At the same time the firm is looking to the future and working, for example, to incorporate new technology and new production methods into classic lamp ranges. The aim is to create products with a sustainable design that lead the way without slavishly following the whims of fashion. FRIIS & MOLTKE Design see this as the most sustainable approach.

Mikkel Bahr points out that although very few people are aware of it, light has a major impact on our wellbeing.

“Daylight is a central focus for architects, and particularly here in the Nordic region, where natural light is in short supply for long periods of the year, artificial light is extremely important. In addition to providing attractive lighting, our lamps should be appealing objects to look at even when they are off,” he says.

Read the interview with Mikkel in the Lampas catalog: