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$Unique_ID{COW01087}
$Pretitle{411}
$Title{Denmark
Danish Design: It all Began with Furniture}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{F. Sieck}
$Affiliation{Press and Cultural Relations}
$Subject{danish
furniture
design
klint
young
industrial
products
still
copenhagen
designers}
$Date{1988}
$Log{City Hall, Copenhagen*0108701.scf
}
Country: Denmark
Book: Fact Sheets on Denmark
Author: F. Sieck
Affiliation: Press and Cultural Relations
Date: 1988
Danish Design: It all Began with Furniture
[See City Hall, Copenhagen: Courtesy Embassy of Denmark, Washington DC]
All viable movements in art have sprung from the embryo of protest and
provocation. No exception was the revolt of the mid-1920s which directed
development of Danish design into the narrow path of self-criticism, a route
that a generation later - to the surprise of many - was to lead to the broad
highway of international acclaim.
The young provos
The young rebels who set the ball rolling and gave Danish design its
fertile image - later to crystallise as 'Danish Modern' - included people like
Kare Klint (1888-1954), Kay Bojesen (1886-1958), Poul Henningsen (1894-1968),
Steen Eiler Rasmussen (1898- ) and Viggo Sten Moller (1897- ). Each in
his field but forming a broad, general front, they carried the banners of
protest. A nucleus of intense young artists, whose efforts as provocateurs,
critics and teachers are still reflected in every corner of contemporary
Danish design.
Danish furniture design
In the course of 25 years exports of Danish furniture have soared from
zero to more than D.kr. 1,300 million p. a., and in per capita value only
Belgian exports can compete with Denmark. As Danish exports of other forms of
industrial art have expanded more or less in the shadow of furniture's
success, it would be useful to have the historical background to modern Danish
furniture design. Especially as the furniture story incorporates almost all
the typical developmental features of Danish design generally.
Since the 17th century, Danish furnituremakers had depended on the
inspiration of long tradition and were clearly influenced by the outside
world. This trend continued unchanged throughout the period of general style
confusion and contempt for elementary quality standards which the brutal
industrialisation and mercantilisation of cabinetmaking produced in every
European country, culminating after World War I.
It was this despicable treatment of quality and style the young
rebels - with an over-the-shoulder glance at the Bauhaus School - demonstrated
against. And not without response. In 1924 the Danish Royal Academy of Fine
Arts set up a lectureship in furniture design, and as the first head of what
became known as the furniture school the Academy appointed 36-years-old Kare
Klint. The event signalled an epoch with new horizons, leading to Danish
design as we now know it on the international scale - and with unmistakable
traces of Klint inspiration as artist and instructor.
First, the measurements
Klint had studied originally at the Academy's school of painting. Later,
he studied under his father and on the latter's death, completed his principal
project: Grundtvig Church in Copenhagen.
Klint the Younger produced relatively few furniture designs himself. But
most of what he did make is still in production, living monuments of a man
whose shadow has so far stretched over two generations of Danish designers.
There were those he himself influenced directly, people like Borge Mortensen,
and there are his pupil's pupils: Bernt, Rud Thygesen, Johnny Sorensen, etc.
What put Klint ahead of his contemporaries was the idea, the discipline
and the method he attempted to realise both as designer and teacher. He had an
apparent aversion to putting his thoughts in writing; in the event he is
survived by only one relevant written version of his philosophy and
instructional techniques. It is an article in the magazine 'Arkitekten',
written in 1930 under the heading 'Teaching furniture design at the Academy'.
In the opening lines he managed to express the essence of his ideas:
'Students who have not previously designed furniture start by measuring
an existing piece of furniture - whether old or modern is immaterial, provided
its primary form is still valid today.
'After this preliminary study, instruction is given in the general
factors that decide the size and utility of an item of furniture. First, the
utility measurements, found from study of the human anatomy and movement
engaged in different activities. Then, an account of the objects stored in the
home ...etc.'
Designed and tailored for the user
All very dry and theorical, true. But Klint's formulation of the
designer's philosophy in effect has been the basis for some of our most
searching performance analyses and market surveys of the functional setting
and needs of modern man in a domestic environment - and the Klint approach has
never been criticised. It is on the contrary a collection of universally
applicable norms affecting virtually every other field of Danish industrial
art and design.
Klint employed his students for the measurements and analyses he
considered significant. For example, the dimensions of storage systems. How
far the human anatomy can reach in height and width. The layout of shelves.
The dimensions of shelves, trays, drawers and cupboards in relation to the
items they contain. The size of place settings at table. All the relevant,
everyday domestic problems. And last, but not least, the problems encountered
in chairmaking and seated comfort.
The unyielding principle that furniture should first and foremost be
designed and tailored for the user placed Denmark on a design course that
branched increasingly off the mainstream of design theory in Western Europe.
The result was the emergence of a recognisable Danish furniture culture that
caught the world's eye around 1950 and turned out to be an amazing export
success.
The development was aided by many designers who, without denying the
validity of the Klint ideal, cultivated a more liberal, sculptured idiom. One
of these was Finn Juhl, whose persistent love affair with teakwood brought
this material - formerly overlooked by most of the world - to the forefront of
Danish, and later European, furniture manufacture for more than two decades.
Arne Jacobsen was another pioneer. As furniture designer, he created
moulded models that may perhaps live forever: his chairs, The Ant, The Egg,
and The Swan. But the most notable feature of his furniture, textiles, lamps,
glass, cutlery and other objects of industrial design is undoubtedly that they
have invariably been conceived as integral details in his architectural
designs.
Manufacturers and designers unite
It has been said that exports will develop only if the domestic market is
healthy. And there is no doubt that Klint and his students could never have
launched their ideas if they had not been received favourable by producers and
consumers.
In this connection a step taken in 1927 by the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers'
Guild was decisive: the Guild organised an exhibition of members' work. The
event proved so popular with the public that it became an annual exhibition.
For 40 years - from 1927 to 1966 - the Guild held a yearly display of the
best products created by members during the preceding 12 months. Excellent
stuff, usually the result of a union of young designers and farsighted
producers. Each had something fresh to bring to the development of this
fruitful epoch of Danish furniture design.
Youth, like fashion, is a volatile quality. Gone almost before it has had
time to register, and it tends to freeze in a permanent pattern. The
Copenhagen Guild avoided this fate because there was a constant flow of new,
young replacements to inject novelty into the inspired relationship between
cabinetmaker and designer. Filling the shoes of those designers who had now