This month we celebrate the 80th birthday of the first VELUX windows by recounting the story of how they came to be. However, new information has surfaced recently, and the origin of the window is not quite as we have been told…
Many employees probably know the story of the development of the VELUX roof window: On 1 April 1941, civil engineer Villum Kann Rasmussen (KR) founded the company V. Kann Rasmussen & Co, specialising in glass roofs. Shortly after the foundation, KR got in touch with the architects H. Steudel & J. Knudsen Pedersen in Slagelse, Denmark, in connection with a contract for a sports hall. One day in the autumn of 1941, one of the architects said that they were renovating some schools who wanted to convert the space below the roof to classrooms. Due to the war, it was difficult to obtain materials for new buildings, and it was therefore important to make full use of existing buildings. Incidentally, in a circular from 1938, the Ministry of Education had made it possible to create "skylights" as a source of daylight in classrooms.
Slagelse Vestre School, 1942.
KR was now asked if he could undertake the construction of the roof windows to be used in the school renovations. He took up the call and set out to "… once and for all to develop a skylight – a roof window which in every respect was as good as the best vertical window". The first order of 12 wooden roof windows with an exterior cladding of zinc were delivered to Slagelse Vestre School in April 1942. KR had given the new window the name "STANDARD", as it was made in standard dimensions that fit the common types of rafters in Denmark. In connection with the first delivery, KR had stated the name "VELUX" on the invoice, with VE for ventilation and LUX for light. At the next delivery of roof windows to Sneslev School near Ringsted, the windows had now been given this name.
KR and Bodil with their first child Aino.
This is the official story of how the VELUX roof window came to be, but it is not completely accurate. As it turns out, KR had already been working on a design for a new roof window for several years prior to this, while he and his family lived in a property in Hellerup north of Copenhagen. “As newlyweds, my parents lived in a property on Bernstorffsvej, which had a traditional cast iron skylight in the bathroom. When the shower was in use, condensation formed on the window, and cold drops would fall on the person showering. This irritated my father, and spurred him to think of a solution. He worked with another engineer named Cornelius Hansen, and they started drawing a roof window together as early as 1939-40, when my father was still employed by Vølund. So, when he received the request from the architects in the autumn of 1941, he was able to develop a new roof window fairly quickly,” explains KR’s daughter Aino Kann Rasmussen. As you know, it was the VELUX roof window that over time turned KR’s small company into a large international group of companies. The name VELUX was registered as a trademark in Denmark on October 3, 1942, and is today perhaps the best-known trademark in the world within the building materials industry.