Poul Henningsen was born in Copenhagen in 1894 to the famous Danish actress Agnes Henningsen. He never graduated as an architect, but studied at both the Technical School at Frederiksberg, Denmark and then at the Technical College in Copenhagen from 1914-17.
He started practicing traditional functionalistic architecture, but over the years his professional interests changed to focus mainly on lighting which is what he is most famous for. He also expanded his field of occupation into areas of writing, becoming a journalist and an author. For a short period at the beginning of WWII, he was the head architect of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.