Arne Jacobsen Makes Furniture Designs Like no Other Furniture Designers

Arne Jacobsen Makes Furniture Designs Like no Other Furniture Designers

Denmark is the home of many things, quality furniture being one of those things. Many furniture designers have been born in Denmark, Arne Jacobsen being one of them. Born in 1902, Arne Jacobsen is one of Denmark's most well known designers and he is the father of the chairs known as the 'Egg', the 'Swan' and the 'Swan sofa', and the Series 3300 furniture. He was also a successful architect but the buildings he designed, while beautiful like the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen that is filled with his furniture as well, is not as highly appreciated as his furniture designs.



Arne Jacobsen studied at Technical School between 1920 and 1924, following up the time as a bricklayer's apprentice during the holidays. Between 1924 and 1927 he schooled at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Architectural department. He was awarded a gold medal for the proposal he made for the national museum in Klampenborg before securing a job with the architectural office of Paul Holsoe. He worked for Holsoe for three years before opening his own design office which he headed until his death in 1971. Additionally, he worked as an architect, interior, furniture, textile, and ceramic designer. And somehow between all of this he was professor of architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1956.



He turned away from the new classicist designs that were affecting the business, preferring functionalism in his designs instead. His very first example of this thinking was the design of futurist styled exhibition building. His architectural designs in the 1930s kept him busy, developing the Bellvue Sea-Bathing Area, the Bellavista housing development, the HIK Tennis Courts, Arhus' city hall and the Sollerod in addition to other apartments, terrace houses, and single family homes in Gentofte and surrounding environs. The Stelling's House was also Arne Jacobsen's and these buildings are all still viewable in Copenhagen.



The exteriors of many of these buildings were not the only thing Arne Jacobsen accomplished. Many of the interiors were also his, showing the world that he was multi-talented. He preferred beautiful items and consumer goods that were designed and just not manufactured in bulk, including furniture, lamps, and textiles. His first collaboration with Fritz Hansen launched both men into the international furniture scene. It was the 1952s Ant chair.



Arne Jacobsen insisted that items produced on an industrial level had the same quality as handmade goods. This allowed him to introduce and enforce brand new and unique production methods for the items. The Ant chair was one of them and it was originally designed to the medical group Novo Nordisk. It was developed in both three and four legged versions and it is still in production today.



His most well known building is St. Catherine's College in Oxford's university extension. He developed the Oxford chair in 1964 and used the natural settings of the area to showcase his talent as a landscape architect and gardener. His efforts earned him an honorary doctorate from the University. His 'less is more' mentality inspired other designers, but his furniture's functionalism was apparent from the start. He dabbled in circular designs, cylinders, triangles and cubes, all of them becoming international standards and classic designs.

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