When wood and light meet to create harmony
Wood is the common thread running through Scandinavian furniture, lending a warm note to living spaces where a cosy ambience counters the chill of snowy days. It's true that forests dominate the landscape as far as the eye can see, so wood is an easy material to come by, which also means you can keep busy while you wait for the sunny days to return! In a way, these environmental conditions explain the palette of interior decors, dominated by light shades and harmonies of grey. A way of compensating for the long winter months bathed in darkness, in search of light. The absence of shutters or curtains on windows plays a valuable role. When there's a lack of light from outside, the street lights up from inside, where the taste for soft lighting, filtered through paper or opaline, is very pronounced. A feeling of well-being envelops you as soon as you step through the door... and that's hygge!
The first golden age of Danish design
It all began in the early 1930s with the research carried out by Kaare Klint (1888-1954), considered the father of Danish design. A contemporary of Le Corbusier, he set out to rationalize the needs of people in their daily lives, focusing on the functionality of the furniture or object used. Little by little, he established ergonomic standardization by developing his own Modulor, later taught at the Furniture School, a section of the Copenhagen Fine Arts Academy. Although his work remains marked by academicism and an emphasis on craftsmanship, it nonetheless laid the foundations for twentieth-century furniture. Although wood is still omnipresent, it combines perfectly with other materials such as leather and textiles. A masterpiece of its kind, the Safari chair remains timeless.
Created in 1936, it was the pioneer of kit furniture for home assembly, sold completely disassembled in a small crate for shipping. It revisits the Indian Roorkhee Chairs, lightweight, easy-to-transport yet ultra-strong folding armchairs used in India by the British army at the turn of the 1890s. Other flagship pieces launched a few years earlier, in 1933: the "deck chaise longue" and the folding stool, which remain benchmarks in furniture history.
As for The Lantern lamp, colloquially known as "the Klint", you' ll find it just about everywhere in Copenhagen, from private homes to trendy places. Born in 1944, this suspension lamp remains highly appreciated for its soft, glare-free light and poetic folding. Originally made from sheets of paper, since 2007 it has been produced in PVC sheets, thanks to a makeover by Kim Weckstrom Jensen, and is now available in an XXL version. Dreaming of one? A quick detour to Boutique Le Klint will satisfy your craving.
Design and architecture: great signatures
Modernism and international renown were brought by Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971), a true jack-of-all-trades honored with several international awards for his work in textiles, interior decoration, design and architecture. It was in this field that, in association with architect Flemming Lassen, he launched his career, winning the House of the Future competition in 1929. This circular house, Fremtidens Hus, was completely visionary for its time. It featured the very latest technological advances, many of which are now being developed in the field of home automation: automatic opening of the garage door as the car approaches, a vacuum cleaner built into the doormat at the entrance to the house to clean dirt from shoes, a roof-mounted antenna to capture electricity transferred without wiring, a flat-screen TV in the central living room..
This modernity could not do without a relationship with nature, an infinite source of inspiration for Jacobsen, an avid botanist and gardener. The interplay of curved lines and a sense of detail are the hallmarks of the famous designer's style.
This attachment to the organic world gave rise to some universally recognized seating designs. The Ant chair, designed in 1952 for the Novo Nordisk company canteen, was a real eye-catcher! It was Denmark's first mass-produced molded chair. A simple contour line, optimized and streamlined to be perfectly adapted to modern life and industrial production. Then came an egg and a swan... Egg Chair with its round, enveloping shapes, and the Swan armchair with its outstretched wings, both developed by diligent tinkering in the garage of his Klampenborg home in 1958. Egg Chair was designed for the lobby and reception rooms of Copenhagen's SAS Royal Hotel. Its perfect shape brought comfort and privacy to spaces often saturated with noise.
The Radisson Blu or SAS Royal Hotel was a forerunner of this dynamic balance between function and line. Copenhagen's first skyscraper, its mad project integrated architecture and design into every element of the hotel - from tableware to door handles - fulfilling all of Arne Jacobsen's creative desires. It is considered his masterpiece, his Gesamtkunstwerk. We can't get enough of the AJ Table Lamps, whose ingenious base was designed to hold an ashtray.
For vintage enthusiasts, room 606 at the Radisson Blu Royal is the showroom, entirely preserved in its original state. If you want to reserve it, do so well in advance, as it's highly coveted!
Plastic, polyurethane foam and fiberglass: inspiring materials
The 1960s and 1970s were full of increasingly daring ideas, using composite materials from the world of automobiles, industrial equipment and sports equipment. Post-modernism drew from popular culture a desire for superficiality and a growing interest in color. Form follows fun replaced the Less is more of previous decades. Folk, humor, color... are embodied by Verner Panton (1926-1998).
His predilection for seating of all kinds (stools, armchairs, chairs, etc.) led him to enter the pantheon of design with his eponymous chair, the famous Panton, instantly recognizable by its monolithic S-shaped silhouette with suspended seat, the first injection-molded plastic chair. A technical feat made possible by Vitra's investment. Over the years, production has kept pace with improvements in synthetic materials to ensure strength and durability: lacquered fiberglass, Baydur plastic, ABS plastic and polypropylene. Fun, pop and friendly, the Flowerpot-VP1 suspension has been available in vitamin-rich colors since 1964. Its name refers to the triumphant Flowerpower of the new Peace and Love generation. Another vision of nature!
The 2000s and the revival
Globalization, digital technology and a thirst for sustainable solutions are the new challenges facing designers. In addition to being functional, the object must also be ethical and sustainable. The promotion of Made in Denmark will be stepped up. Local, regional, natural and handmade are key concepts. Modularity is another key word in Danish design. The ability to use predefined shapes to create tailor-made solutions is the leitmotif of Montana, founded in 1982 by Peter J. Lassen, renowned for its shelving systems and open or closed pedestal furniture, with an immoderate taste for color. A total of 45 colors are available to personalize the furnishings of every room in the house. All new, all beautiful, the Montana showroom awaits you to fill up on ideas just a few meters from Nyhavn!
Back from Bali in 2008, Trine Bøttger developed her own line of objects for the home, a subtle blend of Scandinavian and Balinese craftsmanship. Encoded mixes woven cowhide, recycled seatbelts and untreated teak wood with the clean lines of classic Danish design. The showroom is located in the trendy, fast-changing Vesterbro district, at the entrance to the former Carlsberg brewery, another Danish institution!
Designers can't work without the support of design agencies
Since 1892, Louis Poulsen Lighting has been manufacturing top-of-the-range lighting fixtures, including those designed by Poul Henningsen, and more recently in 2019, Olafur Eliasson's OE Quasi suspension, composed of two interlocking polyhedra using 90% recycled aluminum as raw material. Stop off at the magnificent showroom in Christiania, housed in former warehouses. A visit to the land of lights guaranteed!
Since 2001,House of Finn Juhl has been entrusted with a fabulous legacy: the re-edition of furniture designed by Finn Juhl (1902-1989). To date, 40 pieces have been crafted in the style of the man who wanted the structural elements of his pieces to appear to float. Lightness above all, a sculptor's spirit driven by movement and life, by a thwarted career as an artist and art historian. "Art has always been my main source of inspiration. I'm fascinated by forms that defy gravity and create a visual lightness," he says. Each of his pieces, in addition to being a reference to contemporary art, carries the breath of Japanese minimalism. From this combination came Chair Chieftain and Grasshopper-Sauterelle, which, despite being 70 and 80 years old, haven't aged a day!
An ever more innovative, ever more original, ever more visionary design
Since 2019, an astonishing island of lime trees has been floating over Copenhagen harbor. A new kind of public park has just come into being, following intense urban planning reflection on the Copenhagen of the future, with questions on: these included questions such as "How should public space be used?" and "What are the functions of public space?", as well as consideration of the context of a capital where urbanization is intensifying daily, particularly around the harbour, which in a few years' time will be faced with rising sea levels as a result of global warming.
The prototype, named Copenhagen Islands 1 or CPH-Ø1, is a 20 m² floating pontoon built from larch, a wood traditionally used in nautical construction for its resistance to salty water. Other modules will soon complete this new floating city and will be able to accommodate various services: cafés, saunas, play areas... A Waterworld where science fiction has become reality, just like at the Green Island café (near Kalvebod Brygge).
To learn more, what to do?
A visit to the Designmuseum Danmark is a must. A chronological museography, original pieces from yesterday and today, and above all the chance to try them on! What better way to think, dream and live design?
An afternoon shopping in the department stores? Magasin du Nord and Illum are overflowing with shelves dedicated to 100% Danish design, of course! An opportunity to discover the young Rraawii brand, already known for its ceramics designed by Nicholai Wilgh Hansen: jugs, bowls, salad bowls, vases with cubist lines and monochrome colors that embellish everyday objects; Zone and its bathroom and kitchen accessories that are so addictive because of their simplistic look, that people collect them; or Vipp and its dustbins so beautiful that you don't want to hide them... so much so that they're on display in the collections of New York's MoMA. A little background: the first Vipp dustbin was created in 1939 for the hairdressing salon of Marie, wife of its inventor, Holger Nielsen. It was an immediate success, as it was equipped with a pedal. A very practical and hygienic idea!
