VL 45 Radiohus Portable Lamp

Designed in the 1940s by Vilhelm Lauritzen for the Danish Broadcasting House and originally called "The Office Lamp", the VL 45 was famously featured in the Eameses' 1950s Los Angeles home. The VL 45 Portable now brings its iconic opal-glass design anywhere, for timeless ambiance indoors and out.

Vilhelm Lauritzen was one of the founding figures of Danish functionalism, and Radiohuset — the broadcasting house he designed in Copenhagen — remains one of the movement's landmark buildings. Lauritzen approached it as a total work of design, creating the lighting together with Louis Poulsen, and the fixtures born there live on as today's VL series. Where his contemporary Poul Henningsen built light from strict, layered geometry, Lauritzen preferred soft, organic glass volumes — and the fact that Charles and Ray Eames chose the VL 45 for their own home says much about how far its quiet charm travelled. The portable edition distils that heritage into a small, cordless form: the same gently swelling opal glass, now glowing from a built-in rechargeable LED that goes wherever the evening takes you.

In daily use, the VL 45 Portable is the kind of lamp that gets picked up constantly. The opal glass diffuses its light into a soft, even pool with no glare, lovely at eye level on a dinner table or beside an armchair. With no cord to manage, it moves from desk to dining table to balcony in a moment — a real advantage in compact city apartments, from Seoul to Tokyo to Hong Kong, where a single beautiful object often has to serve several rooms and moods. Set it on a windowsill for a warm signal of home, carry it to the table for dinner, then let it stand in as a gentle night light.

If you love the look but want a fixed installation, the corded original hangs among our pendant lamps, and the VL 45 Portable itself keeps good company in our portable lamps collection. To see how it compares with other cordless icons, have a look at our guide to the best portable designer lamps.

Light source: built-in rechargeable LED, 3 W.