Flat as a leaf, round as a ball – that’s how Bent Gantzel-Boysen’s feather-light pendant lamp could be described when it first came to IKEA in 1979. Of course, it could be packed in a flat box but assembled into a large, round lamp that emitted a soft, pleasant light. CIRKEL was also made as a table lamp. The shade consisted of 24 polystyrene blades that were easily attached to each other. The glowing circle was a common sight in many people’s homes in the 1980s.
Bent Gantzel-Boysen (1930–2008) designed many brilliant lamps for IKEA, such as the well-known DUETT, with six metal shades, and the table, wall and clip-on lamp BANJO. Bent had a background in electromechanics and engineering, and started at the Danish lighting company Louis Poulsen in 1956. During the 1970s, he became the head of their design team and created, among other things, the critically acclaimed LamPetit, a lamp often mistakenly attributed to his then colleague, Verner Panton.
In the late 1970s, Bent started his own company, and from 1979 to 1987 he designed lamps for IKEA. The CIRKEL pendant lamp was his very first creation, and in 2023 it was reintroduced as HAVSFJÄDER in the NYILLVERKAD collection. Bent’s classic shape remains the same, but the shade is two centimetres wider in diameter than CIRKEL. A small difference that makes a big impression.
