Brown 1970s Desk Lamp

Materials: Chocolate brown and black plastic round base with a metal (iron) counterweight inside. Black plastic ribbed flexible. Iron gooseneck. Chocolate brown painted round aluminium lampshade, painted white inside. Bakelite E27 socket.

Height: 34 cm / 13.38” – adjustable gooseneck.

Lampshade: ∅ 17 cm / 6.69”

Base: ∅ 13,5 cm / 5.31”

Electricity: 1 bulb E27, 1 x 60 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulb can be used, not a specific one preferred.

Period: 1970s, 1980s – Mid-Century Modern.

Designer: To be appraised.

Manufacturer: Produced in East Germany by Massive from Wommelgem and Kontich, Belgium.

Other versions: This brown 1970s desk lamp exists in several colours.

This lamp is in a much better quality made than we’re used to from the Massive company. Generally Massive tried to be as cheap as possible. The lamps they produced in East Germany were usually of good quality. Workforce and materials were inexpensive at that time in East Germany. Many companies allowed their goods to be made in the Eastern Bloc. Mass production in cheaper China started years later in the 1980s.

Massive

Massive was in origin a bronze foundry and they produced mainly candlesticks, crucifixes and chandeliers in Wilrijk near Antwerp, Belgium. The company was founded in 1926 by Pieter-Jozef De Jaeck. His son Eddy De Jaeck was responsible for the huge expansion of the company in the 1970s. But it were his sons, Piet and Jan De Jaeck who made Massive a true multinational. Thus, they moved production to Eastern Europe and China.

In the 1980s Massive became the leading brand in Europe. In 2002, the brothers left the company to the investment fund CVC Capital Partners, for allegedly more than 250 million euros. 
Since 2008 the company is owned by Philips and the name of the shops is changed into Light Gallery.

When the takeover by Philips was announced in November 2006 Massive commercialized more than 10.000 lighting products under brand names such as Massive, TRIO and Lirio. The group had about 5.000 employees worldwide and was active in 70 countries.

This lamp has a plug made by the German company KRANIA. Often you find a lamp for sale from Krania, but they only made the electric parts.  Many lamps from the Massive lighting company has KRANIA parts. Other lights from Massive Lighting have parts made by VLM Components from Italy. This lamp has also a typical East German switch, DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) is written on it, as you can see below. The logo of the maker is unknown for the moment.

KRANIA Kabel-Stecker GmbH

KRANIA Kabel-Stecker GmbH was founded in the 1970s in the town Kranichfeld. Kranichfeld is a town in the Weimarer Land district, in Thuringia, Germany.