Hala Nederlandsche Lampen Fabriek B.V.

Hala Nederlandsche Lampen Fabriek B.V. (Zeist, founded 1932) – one of the earliest Dutch lighting manufacturers and an icon of functionalist Dutch design

Company and origins

Hala Nederlandsche Lampen Fabriek B.V. – for short “Hala Zeist” – ranks among the oldest and most influential lighting manufacturers in the Netherlands. The company name is an abbreviation of the German parent brand “Hannoversche Lampenfabrik GmbH” (founded 1920 in Hanover), out of which the Dutch operation emerged after the Second World War.
The Dutch chapter of the story starts as early as 1909 with the metalworking business of Hermanus Petrus Pieter Christiaan Busquet (born 1884), who opened his workshop in Hilversum. In 1914 his son Herman Theodoor Jan Anthoin Busquet – the later industrial designer, chief designer and long-time head of the firm – was born in Hilversum. Around 1932 the family moved to Zeist, where father and son Busquet continued the business at Koppelweg 11. The year 1932 is regarded as the official founding date of Hala Zeist as an independent lighting manufacturer.
In 1942 – in the middle of the German occupation – the works were expanded by a new factory studio. After the war, father and son Busquet entered into a cooperation agreement with Hannoversche Lampenfabrik GmbH: Hala Zeist imported German “Hala” fixtures on a large scale for the Dutch market, which was undergoing post-war reconstruction, used the same word mark and reproduced the German catalogues almost unchanged. From this period date the archetypal workshop, office and studio-master lamps for which the brand is still collected today.
From the mid-1950s onwards Hala Zeist increasingly developed its own designs. An additional production hall was built at Kroostweg 59, immediately adjacent to the existing works. In 1960 the German Hannoversche Lampenfabrik discontinued operations; that same year the founder-father Hermanus Busquet died. Herman Busquet junior continued the company as sole head and chief designer. Following his death on 12 June 1977 (Huis ter Heide), Hala was sold and subsequently moved to Amersfoort (under the name “Hala Nederlandsche Lampen Fabriek B.V.”).On 1 January 2008 the operations officially relocated to Amersfoort.In its more recent history the Hala brand passed to the Dutch holding company “Curanda”. In 2010 the designer Peter Kos and the entrepreneur Bob Nijk acquired Curanda; in 2011 Arth Holding BV joined as an additional shareholder. That same year 2011 Curanda took over the insolvent long-established manufacturer “Dijkstra Lampen” from Heemstede – thereafter Hala focused on the retail consumer market while Dijkstra concentrated on project lighting. A shareholder conflict between Bob Nijk Beheer BV and Arth Holding BV led to protracted proceedings before the ordinary courts and the Enterprise Chamber (Ondernemingskamer); Arth Holding was bought out. After declining revenue and the cost of the conflict, Curanda filed for insolvency at the end of 2013. The Hala brand was sold to Maretti Lighting in Almere, the Netherlands, which continued selected models under the “Hala” name for several more years. Around 2015 production of these remaining series was discontinued – the definitive end of the historical brand. Today the name “Hala” is used within the Maretti Lighting range, although the current models are no longer comparable to the historical vocabulary of forms.

Signature designer: Herman Busquet

The most important designer of the brand is unquestionably Herman Theodoor Jan Anthoin Busquet (Hilversum 09.02.1914 – Huis ter Heide 12.06.1977). Busquet was an only child – his father worked as an inspector at the “Rotterdamsche Verzekering Sociëteit”; a technically minded elder half-brother named Ton Busquet from his father’s first marriage shared his interest in mechanics and electrical engineering. At only 18 years of age, Herman Busquet founded his own lamp factory in Zeist in 1932. From 1932 to at least 1955 he acted as founder, head and chief designer of Hala Zeist. The lamps he designed himself or had designed at his works at Koppelweg 11 in Zeist were distributed worldwide in private homes, ateliers, offices and workshops.
Busquet’s signature is consistently functionalist and closely related to international Bauhaus modernism: purely technical forms in tubular metal, aluminium, brass and Bakelite, clear silhouettes and articulated mechanisms for writing desks, workbenches and studio tables. Among the best-known models developed by him or under his direction are the early clamp lamps (Klemlamp) and the desk lamp “144” of 1932, as well as the legendary “Pinocchio” series – a table and floor lamp with an adjustable brass-and-iron tripod and a conical aluminium shade, painted white on the inside and pierced with star-shaped perforations. “Pinocchio” was born after the Second World War out of the need to save raw materials; the simple tripod allows the lamp to be used as a table, floor or wall lamp and exists in red, black, grey, yellow and off-white. The series is today a classic of Dutch mid-century modernism. The specialist literature attributes the model predominantly to Herman Busquet; vintage dealers occasionally add the name J. Hoogervorst – a reliable archival attribution has so far not been documented.

Further designers in the later programme

After Herman Busquet’s death in 1977 Hala worked with external designers as part of its own design department. The most important names in the brand’s revival from 2010 onwards are:
Peter Kos – Dutch product designer and, from 2010, co-owner of the Curanda holding company; for Hala he designed numerous fixtures, including the pendant series “Sliced” (pendants with an open shade for a particular light distribution), “Tommy” (pendant with a round aluminium shade gilded on the inside) and “Saturday” (a square pendant in white, blue, red or black), as well as the floor lamp “VOID” (bronze). To this day Peter Kos is described in Maretti Lighting’s programme as “artist and artistic mind behind Hala Lighting design”.

Tom Kater – Dutch designer working around the late Hala collection and a collaborator on the interior-magazine line “VT Wonen Licht”.

After the Curanda takeover Hala also supplied decorative domestic lighting to the better specialist retailers in the Netherlands and Belgium as well as – on the basis of the same vocabulary of forms – project lighting and custom pieces for the contract sector.
Brand, factory structure and competitive environment
For decades Hala Zeist stood for “quality fixtures in the modern segment”. With its in-house engineering and design department and in cooperation with freelance designers, the firm – unlike many anonymous Dutch series manufacturers – aimed at consistently distinctive, recognisable designs. Its competitors included ANVIA of Almelo, Dijkstra of Heemstede, Raak and Herda of Amsterdam, as well as the international group Philips of Eindhoven.
After the death of the founder in 1977 ownership of the brand changed several times, but it never entirely lost its specialist-retail presence. The historical models (1932 – c. 1975) are today traded at the relevant international auction houses and vintage platforms (1stDibs, Pamono, Whoppah, Oblist, Vintageinfo, Pollectief) under the collective label “Hala Zeist” and form part of the canon of Dutch mid-century modernism.