THE DANISH FURNITURE ADVENTURE BY CLAUS ANDERSEN, MA IN HISTORY The story of the Danish furniture adventure in the middle of the 20th century is a story about a society undergoing radical transformation - a story about people, furniture, ideals, dreams and utopias; a story about the influence of industrialization on traditional craftsmanship. But first and foremost, it is a story about how a small group of people and their untiring enthusiasm were able to set the wheels of societal change in motion. If a story must begin with a date, the date for this story would be the year 1924, the year in which the furniture school at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen was established, with Kaare Klint (1888–1954) as the school’s charismatic leader. The school's real name was, in fact, "The school of furniture and spatial design” – a name which in itself indicates the start of something new. Basically, the intention was that any piece of furniture – even before being materialized – should be incorporated into the context in which it would become a part. Students at the school were primarily young journeymen carpenters who wished to gain a deeper insight into technology, materials and geometrical drawing, and to gain knowledge about more down-to-earth things such as general accounting, or how to run a small business. The school was in no way a high-flown academic environment; the general atmosphere and the way in which the education was organized resembled life in a workshop more than it did bookish contemplation. The school was run as a drafting room; Klint was the master and the students were journeymen. The absolute essence of the furniture school was the method that formed the basis for learning. Focus was directed towards function - in its broadest sense. Furniture was to be functional, which also meant that all proportions were to be adapted to the human body. According to Klint, careful measurement work was necessary to achieve “functionality” and Klint's pupils were set to measure everything from cutlery to wardrobes. For without knowing what was to be stored, it was not possible to design a truly functional storage unit. Although Klint was a functionalist, he was also in many ways bound by tradition. He flatly rejected the definition of functionalism prevalent at the time in Germany. Whereas the German functionalists, for example in the Bauhaus movement, wanted to wipe the slate clean and rethink all design, Klint was more interested in "recycling" the experience of previous generations. It is to a large extent thanks to Klint that functionalism in Denmark turned out as it did. Klint’s furniture school collaborated with traditional cabinetmaking, 1 and the preferred material was therefore wood - as opposed to the Bauhaus school's penchant for steel and glass. As a furniture designer Klint was not truly innovative. He designed carefully researched furniture and presented new interpretations of familiar types of furniture such as the safari and deck chair. But his school attracted younger talents, and among his early students we find names such as Arne Jacobsen, Mogens Koch, Bender-Madsen, Ole Wanscher, and later Børge Mogensen. A new agenda The time after World War I was in many ways characterized by societal change. There was heavy migration from rural to urban areas, and the rapid growth in urban population encouraged experiments on how to establish a more "healthy" way to design homes. Healthy here was to be understood not only as medical health, but also as a more rational use of scarce square meters. Another very substantial change in society was the rapidly growing importance of industrialization. In Denmark, industrialization came relatively late compared with countries such as England and Germany, and it brought with it new opportunities for making less expensive furniture. If this option were to be utilized, however, it was necessary on the one hand that someone took on the task of doing the designing and on the other hand that there were people who would be willing to buy the furniture. The first experiments with fabricated furniture in the new style were no great hit with the Danish public. The furniture was perceived as being cold and foreign. Here one should be aware of the challenges these designers faced! For many years, the prevailing fashion in the general population had been imitations of historical styles - renaissance, baroque and rococo. The chairs people had access to, for example, were either large padded boxes or an uncomfortable and well-adorned mix of styles. Good taste was simply to imitate the furniture used for generations by the upper class. The new generation of furniture designers wished to change the very perception of "good taste". But the path to delivering simple, comfortable and genuine furniture was paved with challenges. The first and most immediate challenge was that there was no real desire in the population to change taste! And should people be converted, they could hardly afford to pay the price that good carpenter-crafted furniture would cost. Moreover, most cabinetmakers were in truth not particularly interested in extending too much of a hand to the furniture industry perhaps with good reason! 2 So there were challenges, but there were also people who took on the challenges. In 1927, the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers’ Guild decided to arrange a trade exhibition. This was preceded by some tough years for cabinetmakers in Copenhagen, with fierce competition coming from foreign furniture manufacturers. The exhibition was an immediate success, at least measured by the number of visitors. The following year, the guild invited architect Tyge Hvass to organize the exhibition, and his call to the carpenters was unequivocal: "Collaborate with young architects." Thus the cornerstone for an adventure was laid. In the years that followed, the cabinetmakers’ guild shows continued to exhibit furniture that had been created in collaboration between architects and carpenters. This furniture was often bold in contrast to what people were used to seeing. But the cabinetmakers’ guild stuck with Tyge Hvass and his ideas about how the exhibitions should profile traditional craftsmanship. It was in these years, and at these furniture exhibitions, that we find the earliest examples of what we today call the Danish furniture classics. At the exhibition in 1927, Kaare Klint's "Red Chair" first met the Danish public, and a year later, Mogens Koch's modular shelving unit, along with his folding chair, was exhibited for the first time. The following years saw, in quick succession, the introduction of new and bold furniture designs. The cabinetmakers who stubbornly held on to the practice of copying earlier styles were kept out of action at the 1930 exhibition – where the requirement was that all cabinetmakers who wanted to exhibit furniture had to work with architects and not exhibit something: "... which can be seen in any random shop window" [1]. In 1933, Rud. Rasmussen presented both Klint’s safari chair and his own lounge chair. Several of the best carpenters in Copenhagen were by this time already collaborating with younger cabinetmakers, and year after year these partnerships resulted in new innovations. In spite of adversity and even occasional negative press coverage, the exhibitions continued. Some of the best known teams among cabinetmakers and architects participating in these exhibitions were Erhard Rasmussen and Børge Mogensen; A.J. Iversen and Ole Wanscher; Rud. Rasmussen and Kaare Klint; and Johannes Hansen and Hans Wegner. It takes courage! For Rud. Rasmussen’s cabinetmakers, collaboration with architects was nothing new, as they had been working with some of the country's leading architects since the 1800s, and had for generations delivered furniture to the city's finest interiors. The cooperation with Kaare Klint heralded a new era, however, as the thinking that lay behind Kaare Klint's 3 furniture was new. The short version is: Reuse everything that tradition has shown is most suitable. Remove superfluous adornments, and work carefully with the furniture until the most evident form is reached. It may sound simple, but by following these rules, much furniture appeared that differed radically from everything else that was common at the time. [1] Hansen, P.151. 4