WG 24 vs WA 24: Glass or Metal Bauhaus Lamp Base

TECNOLUMEN builds Wilhelm Wagenfeld's Bauhaus table lamp in several constructions, and on paper they look almost identical: the same 180 x 360 x 180 mm envelope, the same hemispherical opal glass shade, the same nickel-plated fittings, the same pull-cord switch. What separates them sits underneath, in the base plate and the shaft. Here is what a glass support does that a metal one does not, across the WG 24, the WA 24, the WA 23 SW and the WG 25 GL.

Weimar, 1924, and the year that followed

Wagenfeld drew the lamp in 1924 as a young designer in the metal workshop of the Bauhaus in Weimar, where students were set the task of making objects suited to industrial production rather than handcrafted decoration. His answer was disarmingly logical: a circular base, a slender shaft and a hand-blown opal glass dome. Nothing decorative, nothing superfluous, every part visible and purposeful. The opal glass softens the bulb into a calm, even hemisphere of light, which is why the design became the everyday face of Bauhaus thinking rather than a museum curiosity.

It is a museum object as well. The lamp is held in major design collections and has been carried in the Museum of Modern Art shop collection since 1986. The re-editions come from Bremen, where TECNOLUMEN was founded in 1979 by Walter Schnepel; his first project was returning the Wagenfeld lamp of 1923–24 to production, and the lamps are still assembled there by hand to the original drawings, each one consecutively numbered and stamped with the Bauhaus and TECNOLUMEN marks. A year after the first version, in 1925, Wagenfeld revisited the proportions of the support, and that revision became the WG 25 GL.

The glass support: WG 24 and WG 25 GL

The WG 24 Bauhaus Table Lamp takes the transparent idea furthest. A clear glass base plate 152 mm across carries a glass shaft that encloses the metal tube, so the structure stays legible from every side and the cable becomes part of the composition rather than something to be hidden. It weighs 1.8 kg and runs on a 2.5 m cable. On a table the shade appears to hover, because the support is present but gathers light instead of blocking it, and the lamp barely interrupts the surface it stands on. Look at the base plate from the side and you see the green edge that gives clear glass away, a thin line of colour under an otherwise weightless lamp.

The WG 25 GL Bauhaus Table Lamp keeps the glass foot at the same 152 mm but changes what stands on it. Above the clear disc the shaft is nickel-plated metal, so the lamp reads as one bright vertical line rising from a base that is barely there. It is the 1925 revision of the idea, and the proportions carry more emphasis upward than the 1924 lamps do, even though the overall height is unchanged. Between the two glass-based versions, the WG 24 dissolves and the WG 25 GL draws a line.

The metal support: WA 24 and WA 23 SW

The WA 24 Bauhaus Table Lamp is the version most people picture when they hear the words Bauhaus lamp. Its base plate and shaft are nickel-plated metal, and the base measures 160 mm across, eight millimetres wider than either glass foot. The lamp becomes a solid object end to end: the shaft catches the light of the room in a long highlight, the base plate throws a soft reflection onto whatever it stands on, and the whole thing has more presence at rest than the glass versions do. This is the reference model, the one that expresses the school's principle of honest construction most literally, with every fitting exactly what it appears to be.

The WA 23 SW Bauhaus Table Lamp takes the same 160 mm metal base and lacquers it black, leaving the shaft nickel-plated. That single change makes the lamp graphic: a dark disc, a bright stem and a glowing dome, three elements that read as a drawn outline from across a room. The black foot anchors the composition and stops the eye at the bottom, while the polished shaft and the shade keep the original lightness intact above it.

The four side by side

Read across the rows and the family resemblance is the point. The footprint, the height and the shade never change, so nothing about the light itself is at stake: all four give the same soft, diffused hemisphere. The variables are the material under the shade and the base diameter, and those two track together. Both glass base plates measure 152 mm and both metal ones 160 mm, so the versions that ask to be noticed are also the ones with the broader footing. Every example carries a serial number and the Bauhaus and TECNOLUMEN marks under the base.

Choosing for the room you have

Start with the surface. On a light oak bedside table or a pale desk, the WG 24 reads as a shade and a glow with very little structure in between, which suits a room already carrying pattern elsewhere. On a dark or reflective surface, or in a room where the lamp needs to register as an object even when it is off, the WA 23 SW keeps its shape best, and the WA 24 gives you the same firmness in polished metal rather than black.

Then consider the setting around it. Polished nickel plating answers to the metal already in a room, so the WA 24 sits naturally beside steel shelving, a chrome chair frame or brass hardware, while a glass base stays neutral among mixed materials. The 180 mm footprint is small enough for a narrow shelf or a crowded desk, and at 1.8 kg the WG 24 is light enough to move between rooms without ceremony; its 2.5 m cable helps when the nearest socket sits behind furniture. If you are lighting a compact home, our guide to designer lighting for small apartments sets pieces like these alongside larger fittings.

Finally, think in pairs. Because the four share one silhouette, two of them on the same sideboard or either side of a bed read as a set rather than a clash, with the base material providing the only variation. A glass-based lamp next to a black-based one makes that contrast deliberate. You can follow the Bremen re-editions further, from the Wagenfeld line through to the Art Déco pieces and the LIGHTWORM series, in the TECNOLUMEN collection.