Aloys Ferdinand Gangkofner

Aloys Ferdinand Gangkofner (1920–2003) was a German glass and lighting designer from Reichenberg in the Bavarian Forest. He trained at the Staatliche Fachschule für Glasindustrie in Zwiesel, one of Germany’s most important centres for glass education. Deeply rooted in the glassmaking traditions of the Bavarian Forest, he became one of the leading German glass designers of the post-war period.

In the 1950s, Gangkofner worked with highly skilled glassmakers at Lamberts in Waldsassen, where he explored free-blown techniques that had almost disappeared. These experiments shaped his later work, in which glass and light were always treated as closely connected elements.

From 1953 onwards, he worked as a freelance designer for Peill+Putzler in Düren, where he created a wide range of blown-glass pendant and ceiling lamps. In 1954, his work was awarded a Gold Medal at the X Triennale di Milano. From 1959, he also designed for ERCO in Lüdenscheid, contributing to a number of distinctive acrylic and geometric lighting designs of the 1960s and 1970s. He also designed for Hessenglaswerke and collaborated with Corning in the United States in the field of industrial glass.

Alongside his industrial work, Gangkofner also created large-scale light installations, often using prisms or crystal spheres. He taught for decades at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, became an Honorary Professor in 1973, and in 1983 established the Chair of Glass and Light. He died in Munich in 2003.

His work continues to attract renewed attention today. mawa design has reissued several of his best-known lighting designs in recent years, including a new relaunch in 2025.