Hala 1970s Reading Floor Lamps

Materials: Round brown painted flat metal (iron) base. Cast iron counterweight inside the base. Long brown painted iron rod. Adjustable brown painted aluminium tubular lampshade, painted white on the inside. Some plastic parts. Bakelite E27 sockets.

Height: 113 cm / 44.48”

Lampshade: ∅ 9,5 x 21 cm / 3.74 x 8.26”

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: 1960s, 1970s – Mid-Century Modern.

Designer: To be appraised.

Manufacturer: Hala Zeist Lampenfabriek, Zeist, The Netherlands.

Other versions: These Hala 1970s reading floor lamps exits in many colours. It is model 645. It appears in Hala catalogues from the 60s and 70s.

When you do a search on the internet for the OMI mark on the chromed knee joint, you always find lamps that are described as lamps designed by Koch & Lowy for OMI. A real bullshit story invented by a dealer with a lot of imagination.

The only Koch & Lowy in existence is not a design team, but an American lighting company and it has nothing to do with these lamps. Today Koch & Lowy is owned by the Chapman Manufacturing Company, Inc. from Avon, Massachusetts. Some say OMI Switzerland, but that is also made-up nonsense.

Others say OMI DBGM, because sometimes it is written on the knee joint. DBGM is not a company, but it is German for utility model, “gebrauchsmuster” in German. Only used in Germany and Austria: Deutsches Bundes-Gebrauchsmuster. To keep it simple, the knee joint is made by a company named OMI and the mechanism is licensed for some period, most of the time 10 years: the small brother of a patent. 

OMI

The OMI company is Otto Meinzer GmbH & Co Metallwarenfabrik from Iserlohn in Germany (Otto Meinzer Iserlohn). It is a manufacturer of chromed brass joints for the lighting industry. The joints are marked with the OMI mark. The company was founded more than 50 years ago. They never produced lamps.

Hala Zeist Lampenfabriek

Hala is one of the first light companies of The Netherlands, originated in 1932 in the city of Zeist and later moved to Amersfoort. At first it was a division of HALA, Hannoversche Lampenfabrik GmbH from Germany.

Herman Theodoor Jan Anthoin Busquet, the designer of many Hala lamps is also the founder of the company.

Dijkstra Lampen B.V. 

In 2011 Hala took over Dijkstra Lampen from Haarlem, also in the Netherlands. In 2013 Fokke Dijkstra junior was in a position to buy back the company his grandfather started. “Making lamps is in our genes” thus Fokke Dijkstra jr.

Today the company is located in Almere (since 2008) and is part of Maretti Lighting. A lot of Hala lamps are still for sale in the Maretti webshop.

VLM Components

All the electric parts were produced by VLM Components in the 60s and early 70s. The company was founded in 1945 in Buccinasco, a small village near Milan, Italy. The company became famous for the switches they produce since 1968, designed by Achille Castiglioni.
VLM is part of the Relco Group, founded in 1967. Today they are the owners of the brands Relco, Leuci, Relco Lighting, VLM and Segno.