Poul Henningsen was Born in Copenhagen to the famous Danish actress Agnes Henningsen. He never graduated as an architect but started practicing traditional functionalistic architecture, which led to a focus mainly on lighting which is what he is most famous for. His field of occupation also included areas of writing and. At the beginning of WWII, like other creatives, he was forced to flee Denmark during the German occupation but soon became a vital part of the Danish colony of artists living in Sweden.
His lifelong collaboration with Louis Poulsen Lighting began in 1925 and lasted until his death. To this day, Louis Poulsen Lighting still benefits from his genius. Poul Henningsen's pioneering work concerning the relations between light structures, shadows, glare, and color reproduction—compared to man's need for light remains the foundation of the lighting theories still practiced by Louis Poulsen Lighting.