INTERIOR AND FURNITURE DESIGN

INTERIOR AND FURNITURE DESIGNBy Mike RoemerInterior designer (MDD) and design editorFURNITURE DESIGNDanish furniture design has a tradition dating back almost 450 years. In 1554, a number of cabinetmakers founded KoebenhavnsSnedkerlaug (The Copenhagen Guild of Cabinetmakers) with the dual purpose of creating high-quality furniture and of protecting the trade from poor craftsmen by establishing formal training for cabinetmakers. Two hundred years later, in 1777,Det Kongelige Meoble Magazine (The Royal Furniture Magazine) was established with the aim of manufacturing uniform, high-quality furniture in terms of production and design for the Danish Royal Household and its various departments and ministries etc. The furniture was designed alost along the lines of catalogue goods by the most renowned designers of the period, and their drawings were forwarded to master cabinetmakers all over the country, who then manufactured them.After a brief period of only 40 years, the practice came to an end in 1815.The important thing however, is that the above-mentioned events were extremely visionary as regards quality and design, and that they went on to form a solid foundation for later development.Furthermore,DetKongeligeDanskeKunstakademi (The Royal Danish Academy of Art) in Copenhagen, established a school of furniture design in 1770,whose purpose was the education of furniture apprentices to draw and inspect masterpieces what amounted to the world’s first systematic education of furniture designer. Throughout the 19th century, indeed until the beginning of the 1920’s, there is an absence of an independent Danish style. Th e architects of the time are inspired by French, and particularly, English furniture and only design furniture for the wealthy upper classes and civil authorities. Peasants, farmers and the fledgling working class still do not represent an interesting commercial body, but this picture changes with the country’s move from an agricultural society to an industrialized one towards the end of the last century. The cities almost exploded in size and social awareness frew with the emergence of town new social classes-laborers and office workers-both of whom demanded monetary payment for their services. Put in simple terms, you might say that this was how the foundation of modern consumer society came into being. Once current overheads had been met such as food,clothing,rent and heating etc. People still had the means to buy furniture, which in its own small way, created the basis for a formalized furniture industry.The furniture industry did not really take off until people began moving away from the cramped apartments in the city centers to larger apartments and detached houses on the outskirts of town. This happened in two stages, the first of which was in the 1920’s,when the social housing projects began and detached houses started to appear. The second stage was in the 1950’s,when both types of housing began to shoot up everywhere. This development, combined with a high level of knowledge and awareness,creatd a new and more rational housing culture where people began to demand high-quality functional furniture. As it turned out, people outside Denmark soon began to make the same kinds of demands.The 1920’s saw the desire for a purely Danish style of furniture. I n 1924,a lectureship in furniture design was established at KunstakademietsArkitektskole (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture) in Copenhagen. The lectureship went to the Danish architect,Kaare Klimt(1888-1954), who influenced the development of Danish furniture design toa great degree.KaareKlint was a systematic and a modernist who used his students to pioneer a series of surveys and analyses of furniture and spatial needs. First and foremost,KaareKlint represented the approach that furniture should be functional and user-friendly, an approach which in many ways deviated from the rest of Europe, where functionalism often took the form of formalistic exercises, directing its focus towards a well-to-do elite rather than the ordinary man in the street.The result was that a strong,independent,humanistic functionalism evolved in Denmark through the 1930’s and 40’s,culminating in an international breakthrough at the beginning of the 1950’s.A contributory factor to this breakthrough was the Guild of Cabinetmakers’ annual autumn exhibition held for the first time in 1928.Here, young furniture designers could find collaborative partners among the established cabinetmaker workshops with an eye to developing new types of furniture. It was at these exhibitions that Danish architects like Hans J.Wegner,OleWanscher, Finn Juhl,BoergeMogensen,Arne Jacobsen and many others made their breakthrough, and it was at these same exhibitions in the period following the Second World War that, in particular the American market, caught sight of Danish furniture design-Danish modern.The development of Danish furniture design continued forcefully up through the 1950’s and 60’s, resulting in a sharp increase in furniture exports. The starting point of Danish furniture production was joiner craftsmen furniture, but as technology developed ,production became increasingly industrialised and this affected the way in which architects designed furniture. One of the best examples of the furniture of this period is architect, Professor Arne Jacobsen’s famous “Myron”(“The Ant”),designed in 1951 as a canteen chair for Novo Nordisk”s new medicinal factory. The chair was developed in cooperation with the furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen A/S. From the beginning. It was designed as an industrial product for mass production. Some years later, in 1957,Arne Jacobsen designed a more streamlined version of “The Ant” for Fritz Hansen A/S, the so-called 7-series and these chairs became a huge success with 5 million chairs sold to date. His collaboration with Fritz Hansen A/S continued until his death in 1971. In addition to “The Ant” and the 7-series, Arne Jacobsen and Fritz Hansec succeeded in creating a long series of Danish furniture classics, such as the easy chairs “Aegget”(“The Egg”) and Svanen (“The Swan”), which Jacobsen designed for the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen in 1959. These two chairs were remarkable inasmuch as Jacobsen pioneered the use of expanded polystyrene in furniture-chairs ahead of the times.There were others too, designers who designed industrially manufactured furniture. In 1942, FDB(The Danish Co-op Society) hired the 28 year old furniture designer, BorgeMogensen, as chief designer for FDB’s newly established furniture design studio. BorgeMogensen was a former student of KaareKlint, and Mogensen further developed Klint’s ideas regarding quality funcitonal furniture for the ordinary consumer. FDB’s furniture was manufactured in wood, especially in the domestic wood sorts of oak and beech. These chairs were designed for industrial manufacture and despite the fact this was “furniture for the common man”, it was still of a very high calibre, both in terms of functionality and design. Later on, BoergeMogensen created a name for himself by designing exclusive furniture in an altogether different price bracket for affluent clientele. Despite this, he never diverged from his principles of functionality and user-friendliness.The two designers who really put Denmark on the world map were Hans J.Wegner (born 1914) and Finn Juhl (1912-1989). These two men came from radically different backgrounds. Hans J.Wegner was the country craftsman who had received his training as furniture designer atKunsthaandvaerkerskolen (The Danish School of Arts &Crafts). Jinn Juhl was the cosmopolitan academic from Copenhagen, who had been educated as an architect at the Kunstakademiet (The Royal Danish Academy of Jine Arts). Both men had an amazing feel for design and a deep-seated desire to create beautiful, functional furniture. As a result, they created a long series of furniture classics over a period lasting 40 years; classics which even today stand out as exceptional. Their production of quality furniture is so extensive-Hans J.Wegner alone is responsible for more than 500 models-that it is impossible to highlight the work of one or the other. Particular examples of Hans J.Wegner’s unique design work are Kinastolen (“The Chinese Chair”) from 1945, The Chair from 1949, and Cirkelstolen (“The Circle Chair”) from 1986. Among Finn Juhl’s furniture are such highlights as his armchair made for the Guild of Cabinetm akers’ autumn exhibition in 1944 and Hoevdingstolen (The Chieftain Chair) from 1949. It was chairs like these that won Denmark its reputation as the world’s leading design nation.Around 1970, Denmark began to experience stiff competition from Italy at the numerous furniture fairs around the world, and in particulat, at the furniture fairs around the world, and in particular, at the furniture fairs in Cologne and Chicago. The Italian designers and furniture manufacturers moved in new directions and experimented with all kinds of materials and expression, which caused Danish furniture to appear behind the times. It was really only the Danish designer, Verner Panton, who lived in Switzerland, who understood how to use the new man-made materials and create new designs.This was a critical period in Danish furniture design and for the Danish furniture industry which found it difficlut to maintain its position as marker leader. This situation was not only caused by the challenge posed by the Italian designers. It was also the result of too much success.The good international reputation of Danish furniture design had beed built by a handful of furniture manufacturers who were interested in good design and the use of talented designers. In the wake of their success however, were a large number of less serious furniture manufacturers. Who swamped the market with unoriginal furniture, usually of poor quality, which was hastily marketed under the label of Danish Design.Fortunately, there were new, talented designers on the way up: people like the Danish designers, Bernt, RudThygesen&JohnnySoerensen, Johannes Foersom&PeterHiort-Lorenzen, Gunver&NielsJoergenHaugesen, JoergenGammelgaard, as well as NannaDitzel and PoulKjaerholm. These designers helped to lift the heavy lega cy left to them by the “Golden Age” of Danish design in the 1950’s and 60’s, and fortunately, there were still furniture manufacturers willing to bank on quality design.The greatest problem for Danish furniture design of the period was that the manufacture of furniture was becoming more and more industrialised. The meant that designers had to come up with far more rational designs than before. The fact that training at the atchitct and design colleges was to a high degree based on artistry and craftsmanship caused a good deal of friction between designers and manufacturers. Many designers felt that the manufacturers only had an eye for profit margins and mass production. For their part, the manufacturers felt that the designers only thought zbout designing expensive furniture and of making a name for themselves. This was not a good foundation for developing Danish furniture design and both parties were lacking a viable model with which to move on. It was a small, elegant chair and accompanying table series in laminated beechwood which marked the start of the second “Golden Age” of Danish furniture design. The new furniture was presented at the annual Scandinavian Funiture Fair at The Bella Centre in 1974and was designed by the young architects RudThygesen& Johnny soerensen for the furniture manufacturer Magnus Olesen A/S. The chair and the table series were specifically designed as industrial products in a functional design and were of a very high quality. To top it all, they were relatively cheap as well. The fact that this could be done was partly because the designers had rediscovered the industrial and design qualities of the laminating technique, and partly because they had gambled on the contract market rather on the market for household furniture. The laminating technique was well known: the Finnish designer, Alvar Alto and the Swedish designer, Bruno Mathsson had already created a long line of beautiful laminated furniture in the 1930’s and 40’s –and in Denmark, people like Arne Jacobsen had developed series of laminated furniture. What made RudThygesen& Johnny Soerensen’s approach so unique was the fact that they regarded their furniture as industrial products instead of one-of-a-kind, craftsman-made goods. Their furniture was highly adapted to rational mass production, almost kike industrial design. More inportant still was the fact that an extremely viable model for collaboration between designers and manufacturers had been found. This model created a school of thought and convinced the furniture industry that good design could actually pay!As we approach a new century, there is every reason to have high expectations for the continued development of Danish furniture design. Never before has so much quality furniture been manufactured, and young, new designers are making their mark. People like the designer TroelsGrum-Schwensen, Kasper Salto, HenrikTengler, Hans SandgrenJacobwen, Tom Srepp, Pelikan Design, Komplot Design and various other groups of designers.The most interesting feature of the development of furniture design from 1980 to the present day is that it essentially followed its own path, more or less uninfluenced by changing styles: the postmodernism, hich-tech, neoclassic of the 1980’s, the rediscovery of art deco at the beginning of the 1990’s together with neo-functionalism and the renewed interest for the design of the 1960’s-all of these are styles which have been ostentatiously introduced (and reintroduced) at the great furniture fairs in Cologne and Milan since 1980, and nearly all have disappeared again. Danish furniture designers and furniture manufacturers however, have not felt tempted to follow these trends. This is not out of fear but rather out of a deep-rooted unwillingness to be dictated to by whimsical trends which do not add anything new to furniture design. Instead, they have continued to develop and refine Scandinavian modernism which is characterised by its great care for detail and the manufacturing process, respect for the human anatomy, thorough analyses of requirements and use, aesthetics and considerations about form and function and rational production. This is a work approach which has attracted wide international attention in the course of the last five to six years, and one which many international designers have tried to copy, as was the case with the Danish furniture designs of “the Golden Age” 30-40 years ago.It is this same work approach which will probably guarantee the leading position of Danish furniture design for many years to come: innovation via tradition.。