OneCollection at northmodern

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At northmodern OneCollection showed the recently re-released France Chair that was designed by Finn Juhl and produced by France & Son from 1958.

Known originally as Chair FJ136, it was delivered as a flat pack which seems to have contributed to its popularity, particularly for the export market. 

More restrained than many of the designs by Juhl, the complex curves of the seat and back of the chair are a development of the 108 Chair of 1946 and the pronounced but gently-curved elbow rests on the arms are reminiscent of the arms of the Chieftain Chair from 1949.

OneCollection, France Chair

 

C W F France was an English businessman who from 1936 ran the Danish company Lama at Ørholm with the cabinet maker Eric Daverkosen, producing mattresses and furniture. After the War, the company expanded rapidly and at one stage, by the mid 50s, produced up to 60% of Danish furniture exports. The company changed its name to France & Son in 1957.  The working relationship between Juhl and France & Son was fascinating … Juhl was certainly not the most commercially focused designer of the post-war period.

It would be interesting to see production numbers for the chair because it was, possibly, the most overtly commercial of Juhl's designs. Clearly, this was not 'flat-pack' furniture as we think of it now but, unlike Mogensen and Wegner and most other major designers of the post-war period, Juhl did not produce furniture for the lower priced, more popular, sector of the market so he did not design for FDB - the Danish COOP.

 

A book on the France company - and their work with major Danish designers, including Finn Juhl, Grete Jalk, Ole Wanscher and Hvidt & Mølgaard - has recently been published: France & Søn – British Pioneer of Danish Furniture by James France from the publisher Forlaget Vita.

work in wood at the craft market

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Monomade in Denmark

 

The craft market on Frue Plads is not an obvious venue for craft pieces in wood … the cabinet makers' guild hold regular exhibitions for major pieces and also general design shows and markets such as northmodern or the Finders Keepers market are a good place to find handmade one-off or small run pieces in wood made by craftsmen.

However there were two stalls at the Frue Plads market that had work in wood and both illustrated simple but important points about good design.

Monomade in Denmark was founded by the architects Kira Snowman and Uffe Topsøe-Jensen and is based in Copenhagen. Their beautifully simple - or, rather better to say, deceptively simple pieces - show how important it is to design with clean lines, careful use of appropriate proportions and using the very best timber to highlight and enhance the qualities of the material itself … the goal is to achieve a balanced partnership between the natural material and the skill of the maker.

The ceramicist Jenni Godtlebsen used shelves and a hanging rack by Vestwood with her amazing cups and plates to show how the the pieces do have a clear functional role in a kitchen as well as being beautiful ceramic works but the juxtaposition of fired and glazed pieces set against the natural wood emphasises that ceramics too are made from a natural material. As with timber, it is the variations and the slight irregularities in the finished and fired ceramics that give the works a warmth and vitality.

ceramics by Janni Godtliebsen with wood peg storage rail by Vest Wood

Kunsthåndværker Markedet … amazing art or beautiful utility?

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A significant proportion of the ceramic works on show at the craft market were clearly decorative and that’s fine … the potter as ceramic artist or maker. Glass at this level of design and craftsmanship tends to be more practical so there were certainly wine glasses and jugs at the market but still plenty of presentation pieces. Many of the stalls had flowers or fruit in their vases or bowls but this was presumably to make the display as attractive as possible rather than suggest clear practical use. 

Believe me, this is not a criticism of the designers and artists but may simply reflect the practical approach of the Danes to buying table ware and glass and ceramics for their dining rooms and kitchens. There is probably a clear division in people’s minds between decorative work and practical table ware. I was just curious that although there were mugs and so on, which were clearly to be seen as something special … a gift or a treat to oneself … it would have been difficult to go around the market and buy enough tableware to set a table for a full dinner.

Perhaps this is not the right venue for that … the Kunsthåndværker Markedet does show the work of some of the best craft artists in the country but on the other hand it does deliberately call itself a craft market and not an art fair.

read more

 

the first day of 3daysofdesign

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3daysofdesign this May in Copenhagen has involved nearly 90 designers, studios, design stores and manufacturers around the city who open their doors for three days and, in what is really a festival atmosphere, give everyone a chance to see what is happening in the various parts of the design industry in the city. Some of the participating companies are open to the public normally but some not so this is a unique opportunity to meet designers and design professionals on their home territory. There were special displays, demonstrations and exhibitions set up for open house and many generously provide food and drink.  Several companies use the 3days to launch new designs or to officially open new or remodelled display spaces or studios.

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Montana at Pakhus 48

furniture at northmodern

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northmodern shows clearly how strong and how diverse the furniture industry is in Denmark. Scale, approach, style of product and even preferred materials vary enormously from furniture company to furniture company but also what differs is the business model … particularly the difference between, at one extreme, companies that select design from a number of well-established manufacturers, almost like a curator might, and, at the other, companies that actually commission unique designs from independent furniture designers and work with a number of manufacturers to produce a collection that reflects what aims to be the unique style and the focus of the company.

 

Hornbak & Co

Hornbak have showrooms in Nordhavn in Copenhagen at Pakhus 48 and represent the Italian company Arper; the German designers and manufacturers Zeitraum; Offecct from Tibro in Sweden and Kasthall who are also Swedish. My assumption here is that they import primarily for the office and commercial market.

Hornbak & Co

 

FK 6720 and FK91 by Preben Fabricius and Jørgen Kastholm from Lange Production Copenhagen

Lange

Based in Hellerup on the northern edge of Copenhagen, Lange Production were established in 2006. They have a carefully curated catalogue of Danish furniture where they have acquired the licence to reintroduce and put into production mid-century classics from the design partnership of Preben Fabricus and Jorgen Kastholm and furniture by Greta Jalk.

Chair by Greta Jalk from Lange

        Chair and tables by Greta Jalk - Designmuseum Danmark, Bredegade, Copenhagen

Lange Production

 

Menu

Menu has been described in editorials as a design brand. Several companies like Menu have been established in Denmark over the last 30 or 40 years including Gubi, Normann, Muuto and Hay and there are similar companies in nearby countries including Design House Stockholm and most recently Hem in Germany. The companies vary in organisation so Menu does not have it’s own stores but markets only through selected retailers while Normann has a major store in Copenhagen as does Hay but both retail their products through a large number of furniture and interiors shops. What they all have in common is that they use a number of designers and independent manufacturers to create a distinct catalogue that tries to create a relatively clear brand style. 

All the companies produce a number of lights and decorative pieces so it is possible to furnish a Menu room or buy many of the major items of furniture needed to set up a new home. Menu is increasing the number of major pieces of furniture in its catalogue and at northmodern showed the Afternoon Chair by Hung-Ming Chen and Chen-Yen Wei inspired by bentwood chairs from Thonet from the early 20th century but using powder-coated tubular steel. 

The Menu web site lists 47 different designers or design studios that have worked with Menu on their products but there is a clear and deliberate Menu style so pieces work well together and in various combinations. One strong characteristic is the use of metal for furniture to create a spare and slightly industrial feel … a new range of three different sizes of table by the Stockholm-based designers Afteroom are said to have been inspired by Bauhaus furniture.

Bottle Grinder by Norm Architects

Corner Shelf and Corner Divider by Kyuhyung Cho

New starkly-simple seating called Godot with an arm chair and two sizes of sofa was designed by Iskos-Berlin and has just been launched and there is an elegant day bed by Anita Johansen, a young Danish designer who graduated in 2012.

Perhaps the strongest partnership for the company is with the Danish architectural practice Norm and new pieces by them shown at northmodern included new versions of the Bottle Grinder in polished or matt steel rather then the soft grey and stone colours of the original plastic versions.

Menu

 

Woud

Woud are the new company to add to the group and at northmodern they launched a new catalogue for 2016 with two new chairs. As with Menu they work with a number of designers - the catalogue lists 25 designers and studios - and again, as with the other ‘brand’ companies, they achieve a coherent style through their range of furniture, lighting and accessories.

 

 

 

 

 

Woud

1 | Virka Sideboard by Mark Wedel Pedersen & Rasmus Røpke

2| S A C Dining Chair by Naoya Matsuo

3| Bank by Nur

4| Lean Lounge Chair by Nur

Makers With Agendas at northmodern

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The architect Julien de Smedt curated the area of northmodern for Belgian designers but also gave an important lecture on the work of his architectural practice and showed the work of his design and furniture company Makers With Agendas.

Simply from the name but certainly from the furniture itself you can see that the designs have a carefully thought-through philosophy or approach to the product. One really strong theme is the idea that the pieces should be resilient, sustainable and essentially timeless and well made so that there is no reason or excuse to replace them. 

One very interesting image shown in the lecture had all the contents for a room dismantled and stacked for the move to a new home. The forms and construction details are crisp and simple but therefore quite elegant: the furniture is stylish and timeless rather than having a clear style in the sense of being of a period. This is incredibly rational furniture for people with a pared back life and probably a life on the move … described by MWA as “Minimal Logistics”.

 

Julien De Smedt and Wouter Dons from MWA

Makers With Agendas

a Belgian viewpoint

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At northmodern this year there were seven designers from Brussels chosen by the architect and designer Julien de Smedt who also designed the exhibition stand that was set in one of the large central halls.

The exhibition was promoted and co-ordinated through MAD Brussels - the Brussels Fashion and Design Centre - and Brussels Invest & Export.

Included were textiles from Sarah Kalman and the design studio nomore twist, furniture by Alain Berteau and by Alain Gilles, lighting by the designer Pierre Coddens, work by Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte (who also showed his work at northmodern last August) and work by Jonas Van Put. 

What seemed to distinguish three of the designers, in slightly different ways, was that their work was ideas led rather than initiated by a product brief. The reality of much design work is that a manufacturer or design company will approach an independent designer with a commission that has a fairly tight brief that essentially and inevitably means starting with preconceptions about the starting point and the end result. 

What should be more interesting but is possibly more of a risk (in terms of commercial returns) is to give a designer the time and space to approach the problem from a different direction or to consider a completely unconventional material or to simply think about and design something where the need or the use has not been identified.

 

Jonas Van Put

An interior architect and designer, Jonas Van Put actually doesn’t just want to have a different starting point himself but wants the user to have a different view point.

Observer was designed when Fritz Hansen provided a number of chairs in the Series 7 to the design school to encourage students to adapt and reinterpret the famous design by Arne Jacobsen to mark its anniversary. Jonas constructed a slim pyramid-shaped metal tower not to alter how we look at the chair but to alter what we see from the chair.

The catalogue to the Belgian section includes the fascinating information that by raising the chair up to take the eye level to 5.2 metres the distance you can see from the chair nearly doubles to 8 kilometres.

Pangea is described as a conversation piece with woven platforms or loungers at various levels on the steel frame. Jonas described how he had been inspired by looking at a jungle canopy and that the space between levels gets closer and more constricted at the lower levels. It was interesting to see who climbed up and how far up they went and as the loungers are set facing in different directions not only height but the view point changes as you work your way up the tower.

 

Both pieces and the works by Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte are one off and hand made. Talking to both designers it was clear that finding workshop space and materials was often a matter of trading off skills on a sort of designers barter system but this was seen by both as a very positive way to learn new manufacturing techniques and skills first hand and as an opportunity for exchanging ideas with other artists or skilled mechanics or craftsmen. Exploring and learning and adapting and manipulating ideas and materials was an essential part of the design process.

Jonas Van Put

 

Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte

Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte graduated from La Cambre in 2014 and showed some of his work at northmodern in August 2014 including the Cork Helmet … a way for the user to cut out from the noise and distractions around … and Belvedre … again a raised seat to encourage to user to take a different view point on the World. 

Ecco Freddo, shown this year, is a modular system in fired clay that addresses the problem of how we store and keep food … here using sand for root vegetables and double layers using the condensation of water to keep food cool and fresh without resorting to refrigeration. 

This approach … taking a step back and looking again at how we do day-to-day housekeeping tasks is reminiscent of the approach by the product design students from Lund who showed their project work at Form in Malmö last year in the exhibition The Tomorrow Collective.

It was interesting to listen to Pierre-Emmanuel describe how he worked with a potter to produce these pieces, adapting the design as he learnt more about the material and the techniques required … much like his approach to understanding how watching and learning from the methods of the glass blower meant he modified the design of his Wine Carafe.

Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte

 

Alain Gilles

Alain Gilles is an older and slightly more established designer although design is actually his second career as he changed to industrial design after studying Political Science and Marketing Management and after five years in banking.

At northmodern he exhibited three pieces … Grove, a group of low round tables, The Pure, a football table, and his leather and steel sofa called X-Ray. Visually, the three pieces are different in style but linked because they are all very much about how the user reacts with the piece.

The set of tables in different heights and with different finishes on the top are about how they are set in relation to each other. The football table is tactile and very much an adult play thing rather than a child’s toy. Brushed steel handles on the rods, the figures of the players, like steel skittles but with a look of spacemen, and the integral score boards set into each end are carefully refined.

It was the sofa that was really intriguing. It’s a good few steps away from traditional upholstery and seems to approach the design problems from an engineering perspective … what might be produced by an engineer if commissioned to design a sofa. 

The elements have been stripped back with a simple, exposed metal frame, a wooden top rail across the back, like a handrail on a staircase, to support the back cushions but swept round at each end to form arm rests and simple straight-sided leather cushions for the seat and back with smaller cushions at each end. Its success as a design is in the way it disguises just how much care has gone into the design of each of these parts so, for instance, the side cushions are upholstered around metal armatures that dropped down into slots in the base cushions so the leather had to be perfectly cut and sewn around these slots - an expensive and clever but hidden detail. 

Alain tried to convince me that the sofa is really comfortable by sliding down into the sort of slumped recline that most men adopt on most sofas to watch TV. But my problem with low upholstered chairs is that because I’m tall then seating designed for average-height people - particularly low upholstered seating like armchairs and sofas - makes my neck and back ache very quickly so I pushed the base of my spine right back into the seat and sat bolt upright. Alain presumably thought I was just being an uptight Englishman but actually I was testing the comfort and found that the carefully constructed and firm upholstery and the angles determined by the frame of the back and the frame under the seat cushions provide really comfortable support. Some designers and manufacturers seem to think that soft equals comfortable whereas in fact comfort comes from well-designed support … in the case of the back and neck, supporting the lower back well is actually what allows the upper body and neck to relax.

The sofa illustrates well another aspect of good design because, as so often, the Devil is in the detail and it’s a matter of knowing where a very carefully thought-out detail contributes to the whole - so here the rounded end of the legs rather than having them cut sharply square - repeats the termination of the wood back rail - and pulling the ends of the lower frame outwards to sit under the curve of the back rail creates the sense of the framework of a box containing the cushions. 

Red and dark blue used for the metal reinforce this idea of an outer box scaffold by consciously or sub-consciously picking up the way the artist Mondrian broke down and simplified his images to a strong frame and simple blocks. 

 

Heidi Zilmer at northmodern

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Heidi Zilmer had a stand at northmodern to show her hand painted wallpaper. 

Her work may sound like a rather specialist or tightly specific area of design … one that depends on very high levels of craftsmanship to produce one off pieces … and that is true in part but what is important and interesting, in terms of general design theory and practice, is that her work is not about a designer trying to develop a recognisable or signature style. Just the opposite. What is astounding is the wide range of styles in the designs from those that take historic wallpapers as a starting point through to designs that are starkly and uncompromisingly modern and from designs that can be delicate and subtle, looking like shot silk, to designs that are strong powerful and uncompromising statements. 

A starting point can be a pattern found in nature; a pattern inspired by an ancient oriental or traditional Scandinavian motif, or from playing with a strong geometric pattern but all are seen with an amazing eye for colour but it is a wide-ranging imagination that is crucial and an open approach that sees an idea or a form for inspiration that is then developed into a unique design but with a keen awareness of what is appropriate for homes and interiors now. 

For this display a basic colour of deep blue was chosen to link the works but that was a starting point for ornate Japanese style motifs, Viking patterns or the starkest and sharpest geometric pattern of gilded crosses.

 

northmodern January 2016

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Northmodern furniture and design show opened today at the Bella Center in Copenhagen and continues tomorrow, Thursday the 14th and Friday 15th January. 

Well-established Danish companies are here alongside young new designers and recently-established Danish design companies; young design talent from Belgium along with work by students and recent graduates from both the Royal Danish Academy (KADK) and Copenhagen Technical College (KTS) - shown in a large section called Schools and Talent - and there is an area for makers and crafts under the banner Handmade.

More detailed reviews and assessments to follow over the coming days.

 

ICHI by Ole Palsby Design

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At the time of his death in 2010, the Danish designer Ole Palsby was working on a range of cutlery with the Japanese master craftsman Kazonsuke Ohizumi whose workshop is in Niigata. Mikkel and Caroline Palsby discovered the working drawings by their father not only for that cutlery but also for other proposed designs along with trial pieces including a kitchen knife made by the Japanese workshop that had been used in the family home for over a decade but had not been put into production. 

The family decided to form a new design studio to continue both the work of their father and the well-established working relationship with the craftsmen in Japan. 

ICHI, the Japanese word for first, is the new cutlery range that is now in production and is available in two finishes - matte steel and a titanium finish. An initial trial piece had been given a polished finish for the handle but the Palsby’s, after some deliberation, felt that an overall matte finish would be more appropriate now. The dark grey-black finish of the titanium cutlery not only brings a new aesthetic to table settings but provides an important alternatives for people who have an allergic reaction to steel.

Ole Palsby came to design in his 30s after an early career in banking. He had friends and close contacts in the world of design and architecture, including Poul Kjærholm and Vilhelm Wolhert, and developed an interest in Japanese design and architecture. Initially, he opened a kitchenware store in Copenhagen and then moved on to design tableware and metal and glass cookware for companies including Eva Solo, Alfi and WMF. 

His approach to any design project was to go back to first principles not just to simplify a design - he talked about purity in design - but he analysed, as an engineer might, the human actions involved.

Working with the craftsmen in Japan the result is flatware that has features that, from a European viewpoint, looks novel or at least distinct. Bowls of spoons are wide and shallow, the angle of the relationship between the bowl and the stem has been rethought, and knife blades have a distinct deep bowed shape to cut sharply without crushing. The balance of kitchen knives also feels different … the result of rethinking not just the shape but also by working and reworking the details of each piece with the Japanese masters. This was not to produce Japanese cutlery but rather to rethink pieces that have a specific use in Denmark … so one knife is flexible and shaped for spreading but also has a sharp cutting edge to its blade so that when making a Danish open sandwich swapping knives is not necessary and on the forks the central two tines are just slightly longer so they make an initial break into the surface so the fork cuts into the food rather than crushing it - particularly useful for eating Danish cakes. The same tight focus on details can be seen in the kitchen knives ... the honed and sharpened edge returns back towards the handle at the base of the blade for deftly making a nick to initiate any cut.

 

Last May a new show room for Ole Palsby Design was opened in Copenhagen in Ravnsborg Tværgade, a street that runs back from the lakes, on the outer side of Sortedams Sø, close to Dronning Louises Bro.

 

Ravnsborg Tværgade 7, Copenhagen N

 

Here, along with the new cutlery, there is also on display earlier tableware and kitchenware designed by Palsby over his long and productive career. There are plans to put some of these designs back into production or to realise some of the ideas and preliminary designs from the archive. As with By Lassen in Copenhagen, Mikkel and Caroline Palsby have shown that it is possible for families to find a way of taking forward the legacy of a major designer’s work by making classic pieces a starting point for new designs.

 

Heidi Zilmer at Museumsbygningen

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At the end of November Heidi Zilmer demonstrated her work and exhibited her wallpaper at Museumsbygningen, the gallery in Kastelsvej in Copenhagen, at the now well-established and regular show for artist-craftsmen and photographers, organised by Banja Rathnov under the title The Time is Now.

 

 

Heidi will have a stand at the major design fair northmodern that opens this Wednesday, the 13th January, at the Bella Centre in Copenhagen and runs for three days.

 

use and abuse …

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Not that long ago, if someone said that they were a designer, you could take a quick look at the way they were dressed and have a fairly good idea if they were a furniture designer, an interior designer, a product/industrial designer or a graphic designer. Ok sometimes the stereotyping wasn’t reliable but usually pretty accurate.

And, more important, it was relatively easy to understand what they did and how.

Since Christmas I’ve read an article about “designing a personality” for an AI project and the Fast Company on-line design journal had an article about the 18 most important design jobs of the future which included among others Real-time 3-D Designer, Augmented Reality Designer and Human Organ Designer.

Perhaps designer, as a job description, is no more tightly defined than talking about someone being a musician when that covers anything from a busker, to a sessions musician, to an international performer and through to a composer who plays all their work through a computer.

But actually that doesn’t stop me feeling that the words design and designer are now over used and their definitions stretched. 

However, the most depressing newsletter to arrive in the New Year was from the Design Council in the UK offering papers on “insights on how design drives innovation and growth” and about manufacturing “businesses wanting to adopt design principles.” It was the hint of surprise in the first and the implication that it was something that might or might not be achieved in the future in the second that worried me. Surely this is not about design and designers but about failure in strategic management and the problem that senior directors at companies somehow do not appreciate the importance of good design at all levels of their business.

But then why don’t they understand that? The British were at the forefront of industrialisation … in both manufacturing and for marketing. In the 18th century Josiah Wedgwood knew all about technical innovation, quality control in production and about advertising, sales and efficient distribution: he used direct mailing, travelling salesmen, free delivery and illustrated catalogues and much more but at the core of his business was good design.

And of course he was not the first - simply one of the first to work on a truly industrial scale for mass production and become wealthy in the process. French silver workers and silk weavers who moved to England during religious wars of the 1680s understood completely the value of their designs and the importance of quality control although they tended to work for even more exclusive customers than Wedgwood but before them were potters bringing new designs and new techniques from Italy or Spain or the Netherlands to produce everyday wares and earlier still of course the glass workers of Venice established an International trade that depended on integrating technical knowledge and design skills.

Design is a process and not an ingredient. It’s not something that can simply be added to make an item more valuable or that can be left out to make something cheaper … although having said that good design is certainly something that can be compromised to keep unit costs down and profits high. Why do we seem to reduce design and the design process to surface and to appearance? That’s like judging an actor by their make up.

Design is the process of looking at what is needed, thinking about how something is used and how it works, deciding which materials to use and determining how to make something using those materials before launching into production. It is the designer who does that. 

Aitio shelving from iittala by Cecilie Manz 2014

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Cecilie Manz graduated from the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1997 and, after a period of study at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, she returned to Copenhagen where she has established her own studio.

Designing furniture, lighting and household products, she has worked with many of the major Nordic design companies and manufacturers including B&O, Fredericia, Fritz Hansen, Holmegaard, Kähler Keramik and Muuto.

The Aitio shelving range was designed for the Finnish company Iittalia and has been in production since 2014.

There are three designs in metal - a square box, a double-width box and a shallow wide shelf - all with the same form with a base plate with the edges turned up and, wrapped around that, shaped metal forming, in a single piece, the back and sides folded round to the front to almost meet at the centre. The proportions; the silhouette of the stepped down sides and the quarter-round profile of the folded corners and the cut-out of the base piece are all very carefully thought through. In less-skilled hands the end result could have been clumsy or crude but actually the designs have real finesse and illustrate very clearly the difference between a design that is basic or functional and a design that is carefully refined … minimalism is not a starting point for a design but an end point, so as here, might perhaps be better described as reductionism with the designer seeing how much to take away, how much to simplify and knowing exactly when to stop. 

A robust metal bar is fixed to the wall and has notched lugs over which the shelf drops … the shelf having simple holes drilled in the back … and two dimples, towards the bottom edge of the back, keep the unit vertical over the back plate.

These boxes can also be used on a work top or on a desk without being suspended from the wall.

There are three colours - a white that is not brilliant white but almost stone or cement, a gun-metal grey and a mustard - and all in a matt finish.

There is a fourth option with a wooden shelf that is supported on metal end brackets that echo the form and the profile of the other shelves.

Careful attention has been given by Iittala to the design of the packaging - both for the way the cardboard box protects the item during shipping and storage while in stock but also for distinct graphics and typography.

Bentwood furniture by Alvar Aalto

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Chair 42 1932

 

Perhaps the designer most strongly associated with bent wood for furniture is the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Many of his designs dating from the 1930s are still produced by Artek.

 

Armchair 44 1932 - Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen

Armchair 400 1936 - modern version, Artek Helsinki

Trolley 900 1936

Trolley 901 1936 - 2nd Cycle, Helsinki

Shelf 112 1936

Chair 406 1939

variations on a theme …

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Here, a juxtaposition of chairs on display at Designmuseum Danmark shows how a designer can return to a shape or, in this example, rework a design in different materials that have different qualities and dictate very different manufacturing techniques.

Shown together are a bentwood chair from the early 20th century - an arm chair from the Austrian company Thonet from 1904 - alongside two chairs from the third quarter of the century by the Danish designer Poul Kjærholm. 

Kjærholm's version of a bentwood chair PK15 is in beech and dates from 1978/1979, just before the designers death, and the steel and leather chair PK 12 was actually designed by him in 1964.

Both the classic Thonet chair and the version by Kjærholm use screws and bolts to fix the separate parts together and both use a bentwood hoop below the circular seat to give the legs strength and the chair some rigidity … in bentwood it’s not possible to use stretchers between the legs that are fixed in place with mortice and tenon joints as in a traditional chair frame.

The Austrian chair revels in the sharp curves that could be made with steamed and bent beech but Kjærholm refines and simplifies the curves to produce a design that is much more restrained although both chairs have long, high curved side arms - on the earlier Austrian chair swept back under and fixed to the side of the seat but on the Danish chair integral with the front legs. 

Both chairs have woven seats.

Again to strengthen the frame, the earlier chair takes the sweep of the back and the hoop of the back legs together. Kjærholm separates the two curves but has a small and simple spacer at the centre.

 
 

Initially, the steel chair appears to have the same shapes and curves as the later chair in beech but of course the metal dictates very different details in the construction. The strength of the metal tubing means that the hoop below the seat can be omitted completely as can the spacer at the back and the two curved sections of the inner loop of back legs and outer arch, with the front legs and the arms in a single piece, are attached to the rim of the seat by short stubs of metal with the parts welded together. The seat is not circular but rather like a distorted ellipse and the seat is a leather pad dropped into the seat rim rather than being woven.

A version of the PK 12 that was made by E Kold Christensen has the upper sweep of the back bound in leather, the strips plaited around the steel, and matching the leather of the seat.