DESIGNERS

It is fair to say that very few people has had as much influence on Danish Design as the world renowned Danish architect Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971). In 1925, he designed a chair that won the Silver Medal at the World Exhibition in Paris the same year, and in 1927, he had the honor of having a house - his first - built after his designs. Jacobsen is responsible for giving us The Egg, The Swan and probably the most famous chair in the world today: The Ant. Originally designed for the company Fritz Hansens Eftf, The Ant is still in production today. The legacy of Arne Jacobson can still be seen in Denmark today … and of course, at Great Dane.

Børge Mogensen was born in Aalborg, Denmark and studied furniture design at the College of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen from 1936-38, and then at the Furniture School of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1938-41. He worked in the office of Kaare Klint, and as his assistant at the Royal Academy. From his time with Klint Mogensen fostered a deep commitment to producing classical, simple and highly functional furniture. He also became interested in researching people and their trends in order to develop domestic objects that were customized to their specific use.

Continuing Klint's innovative studies in how the size and proportion of objects should influence their design, Mogensen, collaborating with Grethe Meyer, produced a project called the Boligens Byggeskabe in 1954 which introduced the idea of building shelving and storage units as part of a room, rather than purchasing and placing them in the space.

Mogensen was a prolific furniture designer, exhibiting almost every year at the Copenhagen Cabinetmaker's Guild Exhibitions, and was the Head of Furniture Design during the 1940's for the Danish Cooperative Wholesale Society. By the 1950’s Mogensen had re-embraced a more straightforward functionalism. He designed a set of simple, sturdy and modest furniture for a seaside cottage in 1959, a very traditional oak table and chair set in 1960 and a set in pine to furnish a "husband's study" in 1962. Mogensen also collaborated extensively with weaver Lis Ahlmann on textile designs, and, after Klint's death in 1954, succeeded him as designer to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen.

Finn Juhl (1912-1989) was first and foremost famous for his furniture. In the 1940s, he broke with the established furniture tradition and designed a number of creations that regenerated Danish furniture design. At the Milan Triennials in the 1950s, he was awarded no fewer than five gold medals and won international acclaim for his furniture. But Finn Juhl was not only an excellent furniture designer: he worked with all aspects of the architect’s profession. He gained international renown as an interior designer for his work on the Trusteeship Council Chamber at United Nations headquarters in New York. As an exhibition architect, he was the man behind the major showings of Danish applied art abroad which created the concept "Danish design" and paved the way for the Danish furniture industry’s export triumphs in the 1960s

Furniture designer and architect Grete Jalk (1920-) was referred to by a critic at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Exhibition in the 1960's as a fine example of "the strong weaker sex." Prolific and versatile, she is known both for her individual pieces and for her ability to create entire environments finely tuned to their inhabitant's needs. Jalk also maintained the commitment of many of her contemporaries to experiment with new materials and production processes.

Jalk was formally trained at the School of Arts and Crafts, going on to study with Danish master Kaare Klint at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen. Though she took part in exhibitions such as the Milan Triennial outside of Denmark, she made a name for herself with the work she did from her own design office for Fritz Hansen and Poul Jeppesen, and for her annual appearance at the Cabinetmakers' shows. One of her earliest such projects was a 1947 furniture set for a "self supporting woman's den." She created a sofa bed, wall mounted storage system and desk to establish a living space that was both bedroom and study for a professional woman. In 1952 she exhibited her award winning easy chair upholstered in oxhide and her demure dining room chairs upholstered in a wool fabric. The "Chairs for Him and Her" set that she designed for the 1963 show also won first prize at a furniture competition in England. She also came out with molded plywood chair in 1963 for Poul Jeppesen that was innovative for the dramatic degree to which both the seat and back were bent.

During the sixties she created several room sets for the new philosophies and equipment of the modern home. In 1961 she created a wall mounted storage system that took into account the difficulty of cleaning items stored on the bottom shelves. Her innovative strategy was to leave the last shelf out to be used as a space to store extra stools. A 1962 living room set in walnut or beech had a coffee table that doubled as a worktable to accommodate the evolving personality of the living room, which was being used more for living and less simply for entertaining. Her 1963 "Watch and Listen" living room unit produced in pine had compartments built in for an extensive home entertainment system. With the television as the centerpiece, she designed shelving for storing and accessing a stereo system, tapes, records and even a small film projector. The unit was bookended by openly displayed speakers. Leaving the speakers open rather than covering them with the traditional lattice work was representative of one of the ways in which industrial design was becoming considered more seriously as part of the home landscape. Jalk designed pieces for almost every Cabinetmaker's exhibit throughout the fifties and sixties, each time responding to and working with the advancements in design.

Hans Wegner was born in 1914: Tønder,Denmark where he completed his early education and was trained as a cabinet maker. In 1936, at the age of 22 he attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen, returning later as a tutor.

He worked as an assistant to Erik Møller and Arne Jacobsen until 1943, helping on their design for the Århus Town Hall, and adding some of his own furniture. In 1943 he opened his own office and came out with the "Chinese" chair which, along with his 1949 "Round" chair would provide the basis for many of his later chairs.

Interiors magazine, in America, put the "Round" chair on the cover in 1950 and called it 'the world's most beautiful chair,' catapulting Wegner into international fame and sparking a profitable export market. It became known simply as, "the Chair" and began making high profile appearances like the televised 1961 presidential debates between Nixon and Kennedy. Of the design Wegner said, "many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I've answered that it...was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest."

While "the Chair" is the probably the chief icon of Wegner's career, and a form that he revisits often, he is responsible for a number of other designs. He and Johannes Hansen exhibited a joint project at the Cabinetmaker's show every year from 1941-66, Wegner claiming that it was "more like a game...we had to have something to display every autumn." His own chair designs from those decades, manufactured primarily by PP Møblerand Carl Hansen & Son, were made with the modern, sculptural idea that they could stand on their own, rather than as parts of a furniture set. The "Peacock" chair from 1947, with a slatted back rest fanning out to evoke the bird's plume, was inspired by the traditional "Windsor" chair. His 1949 Folding" chair was made to be hung on the wall, and his "Shell" chair from the same year experimented with curving the wood in three dimensions to form the seat. The multi-purpose "Valet" chair, designed in 1953, had elements for hanging up or storing each piece of a man's suit. The backrest is carved to be used as a coat hanger, pants can be hung on a rail at the edge of the seat and everything else can be stowed in a storage space underneath the seat.

In the early 1960s he came out with several variations on the "Bull" chair which came with or without horns, and was a fine example of the line Wegner could masterfully walk between elegance and playfulness. "We must take care," he once said, "that everything doesn't get so dreadfully serious. We must play---but we must play seriously." In more recent years he has continued to design chairs and has also worked with lighting, such as the "Pole" lamp created in 1976 with his daughter Marianne. A true craftsman, Wegner has stated that, "the chair does not exist. The good chair is a task one is never completely done with."

World renowned for blending a variety of natural material in his classic designs, Hans Wegner has received many international accolades for his work, among them : "the Triennale" 1951, 1954 and 1957; "Royal Society of Arts" London 1959; "Citations of Merit" Pratt Institute, New York 1959 and the "International Design award", New York, 1957.

In June 1997 Wegner was awarded an Honary Doctorate by the The Royal College of Art in London.

Hans Wegner celebrated his 90th birthday on April 2nd 2004.

In 1924, the architect Kaare Klint, 1888-1954, became the first Lecturer in Furniture Design in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Through his teaching and with his own work, he made an impact on several generations of Danish furniture designers; a few of them, for instance Finn Juhl, he inspired to a counter-reaction.

At a time when modernism was rejecting former models, Kaare Klint took his starting point in the experience of materials and construction going back to Classicism, combining this with proportion studies. His furniture fitted into a Danish classical tradition that was hereby given new life. He also found models in English furniture from the 18th century, the Shakers in the USA, and anonymous pieces of southern European furniture, and he re-fashioned and simplified them to produce modern furniture.

Rudolf Rasmussen's Snedkerier (Cabinet Maker's) in Copenhagen provided him with exquisite mahogany, the surface of which was easy to work, but where on the other hand fine contouring emphasises both form and construction. Each detail, brass fittings, hand-woven coverings and perfect leather, stresses the high level of quality which is particularly typical of Kaare Klint's museum furniture, for example that for the Museum of Decorative Art in Copenhagen

Kai Kristiansen trained as a furniture maker and finished his apprenticeship in 1948.

Two years later he was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts where he studied furniture design under Kaare Klint. In the mid 50’s he opened his own design office and collaborations with Schou Andersen for whom he designed the famous #42 dining chair, began.

During this period he also worked with Magnus Olesen on the sofa/chair series #121. Throughout his career he has been associated with some of the best known manufacturers, i.e. Kjærsgaard, Fritz Hansen, Tarm og Feldballe.

Kai Kristiansen was responsible for organizing a regional Furniture Fair from 1956 to 1965.

From 1966 to 1970 he was the driving force behind the Scandinavian Furniture Fair.

N.O. Møller (Niels Otto Moller, 1920-1981) completed apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker in 1939, and continued his education at the Danish design school in Aarhus. In 1944 he founded J.L. Møllers Møbelfabrik A/S and worked as an independent furniture designer and producer. Under his careful tutelage and creative direction, the company has received many awards including the Danish Furniture Prize awards in 1974 and 1981.

Nanna Ditzel

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1923. Trained as a cabinetmaker before studies at the Industrial Arts and Crafts College and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Graduated in furniture design in 1946. In the same year she established her own design studio with Jorgen Ditzel and has since then been working in the design sector.

From the start of her career in the post war years, a period with few women in furniture design, she has been challenged by new materials and new techniques. Has worked in various materials such as fibre glass, wickerwork and foam rubber and in various trades such as cabinet-making, jewellery, tableware, applied art and textiles.

In the 50's she experimented with split-level floor seating. From 1968 to '86 she has lived in London, establishing the international furniture house Interspace in Hampstead with Kurt Heide.

Among her designs in continuous production are jewellery for Georg Jensen, textiles for Kvadrat and furniture for Fredericia.

Nanna Ditzel has exhibited internationally in Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Vienna, London, Stockholm, Milan, Glasgow, Manchester, Reykjavik and Denmark.

Awarded numerous international prizes, including, in 1990, the Gold Medal in the International Furniture Design Competition, Japan, for her Bench for Two (Fredericia). Elected Honorable Royal Designer in London in 1996 and awarded the lifelong Artists' Grant by the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1998.

Ole Wanscher (1903-1985), a student and follower of Kaare Klint, was noted for his strong influence of classic forms in furniture design, redeveloping these themes for modern times and means.

Wanscher designed a number of elegant pieces in traditional materials with a modernism influence of designing affordable furniture for the people. Wanscher also produced several luxury designs in limited editions. Wanscher studied furniture design on trips through Egypt and Europe with his father who was researching the history of fine arts.

Taking the cue from his father, Wanscher published several books at the end of the project, and would go on to write throughout his career, later publishing The History of the Art of Furniture and Five Thousand Years of Furniture.

Wanscher studied at the Copenhagen Advanced College of Building Technology and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1929.

He had opened his own office a year earlier. In 1955, when Klint died, Wanscher took his much-coveted position teaching architecture at the Royal Academy and remained there until 1973. Wanscher considered construction and form to be vastly important, treating furniture design as if it was a branch of architecture. In addition to the Egyptian furniture, Wanscher was heavily inspired by English period furniture, Greek and Chinese furniture.

His best known pieces were created between the late forties and early sixties, modernism's hey-day. Wanscher worked on the more conservative end of the spectrum, devoting his energy to the poetry of the classic forms rather than to innovating new forms. A 1949 armchair, for example, assumed a square, ladder-back shape and had leather upholstery filled with feathers.

In 1951 Wanscher designed a chair for the Copenhagen Cabinetmaker's Guild exhibition with gently sculpted horn-like arm rests and a woven cane seat that would become one of the icons of his career and was also a form that he would revisit in several different materials. Along with other designers, like Finn Juhl and Børge Mogensen, Wanscher was developing the technique of the 'unsupported arm,' which gave the seat and back a somewhat unhinged and even animated quality and was used on this chair. He also designed a 1951 rocking chair for France and Søn with a curved, organic profile and a square rocking base. A 1960 folding 'Egyptian Stool,' mimicked the shape of a 3,000 year old stool, a form he probably came across on his early travels. In 1962 he designed a more luxurious chair in rare Brazilian rosewood, with a woven horsehair seat, reminiscent of a 1959 rosewood and leather armchair and ottoman for P. Jeppesen. It was produced in two versions, with and without armrests. Wanscher's "Benedikte" dining chair, produced in 1963 but created for and shown at the 1940 Cabinetmaker's exhibition, had a subtly curved piece along the spine and top of the backrest. Many of Wanscher's pieces were carried out through his long collaboration with cabinetmaker A.J. Iversen.

Poul Kjaerholm (1929-1980) designed modern functionalist furniture that was praised for its understated elegance and clean lines. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Copenhagen where he would later teach, from 1952-56. He went on to become a lecturer and professor in the furniture and interior design department at the Academy of Art from 1957-76. Although he was formally trained as a cabinetmaker, Kjaerholm was a strong proponent for industrial production, and his work stands out among that of his Danish contemporaries because of his extensive use of steel frames rather than the traditional wood. He did, however, design many of his seats in natural materials like cane, canvas, leather and rope.

Inspired by Bauhaus design, Kjaerholm worked for several years manipulating the form of his chromed steel and leather chair that won the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennial in 1957. It appeared first in 1951 with an external frame, subtle armrests and a halyard seat and back and later evolved into the popular "PK 22". Throughout the fifties he designed several other versions, one with a functional woven cane seat that would gently bend to the pressures of the body to give a soft support, and employed the technique of padding the cane around the edges of the frame to make it more comfortable. The most successful incarnation of the chair, in leather, possessed an unadorned elegance that made him an international name. A 1967 chair was loosely based on this design, although it used the spring quality of the steel to create a more elaborate curved base that seemed to float the seat above it from the arm rests.

Kjaerholm is also known for the "PK 41" folding stool in stretched leather and his “PK 24” deck chair. This work has an upholstered headrest and tilts the legs up on the gently sloped woven cane seat. One of his last pieces was the 1976 "Louisiana" chair for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen, which was made with and without arm rests and was produced in a wide woven maple.