1 The story of the Danish furniture adventure in the middle of the

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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,
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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!
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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
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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.
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