The spring balancer lamp is today's widespread economy edition of the work lamps from the Bauhaus environment. With it the complex joint constructions for the inclination adjustment of well functioning tension springs were replaced economically. It was produced by Midgard in Auma in Thuringia from the 1950s until 2011 - and it was in the Manufactum range for a good ten years.
Now it's back. And as before, this version aligned with the historical original is not to be compared with the cheap replicas, as a look at the details shows: strong, not wearing out tension springs, sturdy 12 mm square steel tubes, a clamp foot made of die-cast aluminum or a stand made of steel, in which the carrier linkage rotates and a neat metal toggle switch on the screen.

“Better work results, power savings, eye protection – all accounted for by Midgard’s adjustable turn-in lights.” Nothing less than that was the claim that the cover page of an old Midgard catalogue proclaimed full-bodied. Curt Fischer was behind the company founded in 1919 in the Thuringian city Auma. The engineer and designer held the world’s oldest patent for dirigible light and from the very beginning devoted a great deal of attention to every last component of each of his luminaires. In any case, his impulse to renew the traditional resulted in a mutual closeness to and sympathy with the Bauhaus avant-garde. In 1926, Midgard lamps, featuring the aesthetics of precise machines, unsurprisingly, were part of the furnishings of the newly erected Bauhaus building complex in Dessau. Decades later – after the company’s socialisation to “VEB Industrieleuchtenbau Auma” and the reprivatisation in the 1990s – Midgard’s long history ended in 2011 with insolvency. In 2017, however, David Einsiedler and Joke Rasch revived the traditional brand and set up a manufactory in Hamburg-Altona. Since then, production has remained there. And as before, it is still true: All Midgard luminaires are manufactured entirely in Germany.