In 2021, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of the company’s foundation. This year, we commemorate the registration of our great brand name.

In the autumn of 1941, Villum Kann Rasmussen (KR) worked on a glass roofing project for a sports centre in the town of Høng on Zealand in Denmark. The architect firm was about to start work on renovation of a number of schools for which new classrooms were to be fitted out in the attic. The architect firm asked KR if he would come up with a proposal for the right windows.

“I was naturally terrible keen… So when the request came in, I said to myself that this was the opportunity to produce, once and for all, a skylight – a roof window – that in every respect would be just as good as the best vertical window, which I then duly sought to achieve by combining the two industry-standard materials of the time: zinc cladding with an internal wooden construction,” KR recalled.

The first 12 roof windows were delivered to Slagelse Vestre School in April 1942. KR called his roof windows “Standard” partly because they matched the usual space distance between rafters in Danish roofs. He did, however, consider a better name:

“In a ‘Sweets Catalogue’ I had noticed an article concerning some glass roofs referred to as ‘Vent-o-Lite’, and it struck me as having a nice ring to it, but I thought that it would nevertheless sound better if it was written in Latin, and so I came up with VE for Ventilation and LUX for light – VELUX”.

The name was hand-written on the first invoice and registered as a trademark in Denmark on 3 October 1942. KR had not only designed a sound product and formulated a vision, he had also come up with a remarkable name. Today, ‘VELUX’ is regarded as one of the best-known brand names in the building materials sector.

We wish the VELUX trademark – and all of us – a happy 80th anniversary!