We're having a Danish moment, inspired by the clean lines and functional simplicity of the beautiful pieces in our Skagerak Denmark feature. Design aficionado and writer David Harrison writes for us about renowned Danish designer Arne Jacobsen.

Who was he?
Arguably Denmark's most famous 20^thcentury furniture designer, Arne Jacobsen was also a highly accomplished architect. Shortly after graduating in 1927 he opened his own design office, which he ran with driven determination until his death in 1971. Through his long and productive career, Jacobsen worked in architecture, furniture, product and textile design, and was a professor of architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen for many years.

What is he best known for?
His most well known architectural works include the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen and St Catherine's College in Oxford but he designed hundreds of buildings including family homes, high-rise hotels, schools and town halls.

Heavily influenced by the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier in particular, Jacobsen pushed his particular form of modernism relentlessly. Not content with controlling the architectural outcome of a building, Jacobsen, like Frank Lloyd Wright, insisted on designing the interior and as many furnishings and objects as possible. Virtually every detail of the SAS Hotel was designed by Jacobsen from the building itself right down to the door handles, furniture, lighting, cutlery and glassware. This approach also appears in his work for St Catherine's College Oxford where everything down to the sinks, locks and keys were designed specifically for the project.


The 1960s saw Jacobsen move away from his usual use of free flowing line to emphasising the basic forms of the circle, cylinder, triangle, and cube.  This design exploration led to new and unique tableware, most famously the 'Cylinda-Line' for Stelton and the 'AJ' lamp series for Louis Poulsen (the AJ table lamp is shown above).

Plywood chairs

Clearly influenced by Charles and Ray Eames' plywood chairs of the late 40's, Jacobsen produced his first plywood chair design called the 'Ant' (due to the shape of the back) in 1952 for the staff dining room in the Novo Pharmaceutical Company. Unlike the Eames chairs however, Jacobsen wanted the plywood to be exceptionally thin so it was more flexible and therefore more comfortable. He also designed the seat and back as one continuous piece. In its original form the chair had three legs but a more conventional four legged version was later added by the manufacturer, Fritz Hansen. The 'Series Seven' chair(above) was a refinement of the same technique released in 1955. It has gone on to become one of the most successful chair designs of all time with over 5 million chairs sold.

The Egg Chair

Designed for the lobby area of the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen in 1958, the 'Egg' (above) has become one of the most significant and enduring symbols of high-end design over the last five decades. The voluptuous free-flowing shape is made by injecting polyurethane foam into a mould. Once the foam is set, the chair's figure-hugging upholstery (in fabric or leather) is stitched into place by Fritz Hansen's highly trained craftsmen. Newer versions now also recline, as well as swivel, with a matching footstool available.

The Swan chair 

Also designed for the SAS Royal Hotel, the 'Swan'(above) was used in the main restaurant and bar area. Its softly- enveloping organic form is similar to the 'Egg', but is lower so as to be applicable to a conversational environment. Complete with a swivelling base it captures the free spirit of the sixties two years ahead of its time. A two-seater sofa version of the 'Swan' was also produced between 1964 and 1974 and was then reintroduced in 2000.

What are the hallmarks of a Jacobsen design?
Simple, practical, yet elegant forms are the key elements of a Jacobsen design. He used the minimum materials required to achieve the desired result. While most of his furniture designs display the typical Danish soft flowing lines of the period, wood, the staple of most of his contemporaries, was not overly prevalent in his work. Instead, Jacobsen chose materials based purely on how they fulfilled the function. His groundbreaking use of polyurethane foam on his 'Egg' and 'Swan' chairs is as much of an example of this as were his earlier steam-bent plywood designs. (Below is Jacobsen's Cylinda Line tableware).


Fascinating Fact
The famous photograph by renowned Australian photographer Lewis Morley of a nude Christine Keeler straddling a chair helped propel the 3107, or 'Series Seven', chair to worldwide iconic status. Ironically, the chair used in the shot was a copy that just happened to be lying around in the studio!