all in the detail … office building for A Jespersen & Son

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The office block for A Jespersen & Son was designed by Arne Jacobsen and completed in 1955. Just a few streets away from the SAS Hotel, this is an elegant and beautiful building but its apparent simplicity is deceptive … all the details of the facade, the proportions of the separate parts and even the what was then very advanced engineering underlying the construction were very carefully considered. Through a process of refinement, Jacobsen worked very hard to get a building that looks so simple so right by a process of reduction and refinement of the overall design and of the individual elements.

It is also an important building because, at a remarkably early date, it exploited complex and novel engineering methods with a cantilevered concrete frame that was used to overcome exacting planning stipulations but also made possible an incredibly stripped down and sophisticated design. This is not a brutal building but concrete construction at its most subtle and sophisticated.

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all in the detail … Bispebjerg Bakke

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It would be difficult to find two more different buildings in Copenhagen than the Jepersen office block by Arne Jacobsen and the apartment buildings at Bispebjerg Bakke from the partnership of the Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard with the architectural practice Boldsen & Holm but what they have in common is that both designs depend absolutely on their focus on every detail of the design … not simply plan and elevations but the profile of window frames, the careful choice of the right finish and exactly the right colour for materials on the facades, the details of unique, custom-made staircases and so on.

Although the apartment buildings were completed in 2007, the initial idea went back many years before that to a conversation between Nørgaard and the chairman of the Association of Craftsmen so, from the start, an important aspect of the scheme was to have a strong link between an artistic concept and its execution with a very high level of craftsmanship.

Nørgaard made an initial model in clay so the design was organic rather than a building, like the Jespersen block, that was primarily about, what was for its date, very advanced engineering. Bispebjerg Bakke is about fluid lines and the potential for architecture to take sculptural form while the Jespersen building is about bringing to reality the beauty of a mathematically precise design. How you view the two buildings; how you experience the two buildings and how you move around and through the two buildings could hardly be more different and yet both depend on understanding completely the building methods that they exploited and both, with huge confidence, play games with forms and with styles that can only be achieved with the support of a client, willing to go with designs that were far from conventional by the standards of contemporary buildings.

craft skills and apprenticeships are important and are relevant

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carved panel in the Assembly Hall of Arbejdermuseet - the Workers Museum - in Copenhagen

 

For too many people in western Europe or the States, the assumption now is that if we buy something in a shop then it must have been made in a factory and there is the feeling that if something is actually hand made then it must either be worse in quality or much much more expensive. Is it time to change this default but relatively recent view?

Even with commercial or factory production, the importance of craft skills is underestimated … the design process should require a clear understanding of the materials and the practical demands of the production processes and that is best learnt hands on. And although final drawings for a factory may well be produced digitally, many designers work through their ideas and resolve the details of the final design by producing prototypes by hand. Even when it is clearly a factory process, as with moulding plastic, it may appear to be completely mechanical and automated, but the production of the moulds themselves is a specialised and expensive job requiring considerable skill.

Research or knowledge-based skills and abilities in management and finance, trade and banking within the general work force are now crucial for the success of any country but should not be the focus of an education system and certainly not presented as the only choice for a successful career. 

Apprenticeships and the development of craft skills of all types are crucial and the work and the workshops of makers should be given much more prominence within communities. If a child on his way to school walks past a potter’s studio or a joiner’s workshop or watches a glass blower at their work bench they may well decide that throwing a pot or making a chair or making a drinking glass is exactly what they want to do after they leave school.

skills at northmodern

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Within the large area at northmodern made over to Handmade, there were a number of traditional skills on display that are flourishing as their crafts are revived or revitalised and given a new focus to make them relevant in modern production. Traditional crafts used in distinctly contemporary ways.

Århus Possementfabrik established in 1917 showed their work in woven, braided, twisted and crocheted cord.

Århus Possementfabrik

Handmade in Hundested

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In the area Hand Made at northmodern there were two craft workshops sharing a large stand under the heading HANDMADE IN HUNDESTED. Hundested is a small harbour on the north-west coast of Zealand and in fact the workshops are neighbours on the quay.

Nanna Backhaus Brown and Andrew Brown are glass makers producing a wide range of bowls, vases, decorative works and lamps in coloured glass. Their display included a workbench with their tools and films of the work process to show, in particular, how rods of coloured glass are used in gathers and then blown to form fine and intricate linear patterns in the final pieces.

Backhaus Brown

 

From the neighbouring workshop in Hundested - Egeværk Møbelsnedkerie - cabinet makers Lasse Kristensen and Mette Bentzen showed their work. Again there was a workbench and tools and again incredibly refined and beautifully finished examples of their work. 

 

 

One of the chairs, A Touch of Mac, was designed by Hannes Stephensen and made in the Egeværk workshop as a collaborative piece for the Petit - the Cabinetmakers’ Autumn Exhibition held at Øregaard Museum in September and October last year. This is chair number two, the piece shown at Øregaard being now in Paris for the major annual event Maison & Objet.

 

 

Other pieces showed their approach to adapting designs to the specific requirements of their customers helping them to choose appropriate timber and finish and able to customise the size of furniture or make specific pieces designed for a specific space. 

Both trained in the workshops of PP Møbler but are are now teaching their own apprentices with three currently attached to the workshop.

Egeværk Møbelsnedkerie

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.

 

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.

 

the porcelain collection of Designmuseum Danmark

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The display of porcelain at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen, closed while the roof of the east range of the building was repaired, has just be re-opened.

The collection includes not just porcelain from the Royal Copenhagen factory that opened in 1775 but porcelain from the earlier works at Store Kongensgade in Copenhagen and at Kastrup on the island of Amager along with good examples from porcelain factories in the Netherlands and France as well as other countries around the Baltic including north Germany.

The quality of the pieces and the variety of tableware items, with so many different functions, reveals much about the life style of affluent middle-class families and aristocrats in Denmark in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ceramics, along with glass and flatware were early examples of high-quality design for large-scale production in a workshop or early form of factory.

 

 

food cover made in the Copenhagen factory in Store Kongensgade

 

tureen from the porcelain factory at Kastrup

Functional architecture in Denmark?

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farmstead from Eiderstedt now at Frilandsmuseet in Denmark

 

To talk about Functionalism in architecture in Denmark, usually refers to buildings designed in the middle of the 20th century and frequently cited as an example is the work at the university of Aarhus by C F Møller. The term implies an architecture where volumes and details have been pared back to what is considered to be essential and the architects take as their starting point the intended function. At a general level the term is linked with buildings that are often criticised by the public as being stark or even brutal and is usually associated with the use of concrete.

To take the word functional literally, as simply the general and practical starting point for the design of a building, then this building, the farmstead from Eiderstedt in Schleswig, now in the open-air museum, Frilandsmuseet north of Copenhagen, is perhaps the most beautiful and the most amazing Functionalist building in Denmark.

It was also possibly one of the most beautiful factories in Denmark. It is, to all intents and purposes a factory farm with a huge hay barn at the centre with a threshing floor across one side, entered through the large double doors in the end, and with stalls for cows, stalls for cows about to calve, stalls for horses and oxen, the working animals for the farm, and then across one end, under the same roof, the well fitted and comfortable home of the wealthy farmer with a diary and cheese store at the coolest corner of the building.

 

 

The plan and the division of spaces is determined completely by the structure with a massive wood frame supporting the weight of that great thatched roof. With everything under a single roof there was total control of the working process, security and of course sustainability with little natural heating wasted.

Above all, what is so striking about this vernacular architecture is its self confidence; the complete understanding of the building materials, exploited to the maximum, and the simplicity of the roof profile like an enormous sculpture. 

 

Below are a selection of photographs of vernacular and mainly rural buildings from Denmark that show just how confident these craftsmen were in their materials and in their own skills but they also had a clear appreciation of form and colour.

Frilandsmuseet, Denmark

Forge from Ørbæk, Funen

Farmstead from True, Eastern Jutland

Farm from Tågense, Lolland

Farmstead from Ostenfeld

looking back

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historic interiors Den Gamle By, Aarhus

 

Most Danes I meet are curious to know why I have moved to Copenhagen. And when I say I am here to write about architecture and design their response is almost always the same and almost always accompanied by a slow shake of the head. Usually they say something about Danish design being great in the 1950s and 60s but not so much now … my guess being that they are wondering how I could possibly fill my time.

Of course they are wrong. Nordic design, and that includes Danish design right now, is going from strength to strength … see the review of New Nordic Design. 

But what is also worrying is the implication that people feel that Danish design was only great over a period of little more than two decades. 

Perhaps it is simply because people now link together design and industrial production.

A major exhibition at Designmuseum Denmark in Copenhagen last year on the work of Kaare Klint did much to establish just how much the great designers after the War built on design and teaching and on developments in the furniture industry in the 1930s as production moved from the workshops of cabinetmakers to new manufacturers.

However, even this fails to recognise the contribution of furniture makers and the designers of earlier periods of Danish history … furniture was not mass produced in a factory but never-the-less it was designed and designed well and the taste and the styles and the interiors of the late 19th century, the classic architecture and interiors of the early 19th century, and even back through the 17th and 16th century and earlier to medieval art and craftsmanship in Denmark all contributed to the tastes, preferred colour palettes, forms and shapes that we now identify as the characteristics of good Danish design.

 

historic interiors from Frilandsmuseet

My feeling is that possibly the success of Danish design in the 50s and 60s has acted almost like a barrier that stops people looking further back with pride at what was produced in earlier periods. I’m not suggesting that designers should reproduce earlier furniture or historic household goods as some awful form of pastiche or look back in an uncritical way but what you do see in vernacular furniture and rural architecture is a tremendous self confidence in the use of colour, more sculptural forms, an inventiveness and necessary self sufficiency with local makers using local materials.

Maybe this could be an interesting time to look at for instance wood turning to see if it could be given a modern twist; to consider natural stains; to wonder if maybe plate racks and corner cupboards could be useful.

It's not that young Danish designers need inspiration - it's just that sometimes it's interesting, as you move forward, just to check that you haven't  left anything useful behind and It might also be fun to see Danish designers being a bit more rude.

 

Note: by being rude I don’t mean by sending me insulting emails. Rude in English in this sense means robust and healthy and crude. And no. Crude doesn’t just mean that. 

 

 

bottom cross rails are rarely used for modern tables - look at the wear on the rails here and you can see how many generations have  put their feet up as they sat around this table

traditional colours and stains

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Den Gamle By, Aarhus

Reading New Nordic Design, to write a review, one interview in the book in particular got me thinking. 

Erik Lith, Martin Lith and Hannes Lundin design and manufacture furniture from their workshop in Torsåker in Sweden under their label Lith Lith Lundin. Asked to talk about something they are proud of achieving they say they never give up ... and they go on to describe making the egg and oil tempera to stain their furniture. 

They “ began by sowing our own field of flax to make linseed oil, and tearing up old pine roots to make pigments. After harvesting, cleaning and pressing the linseeds and cutting, drying and burning the pine roots, we could start experimenting to find the best stain.” *

Their web site sets out much more about the concept for their work and about the materials they use - materials that are sourced within a radius of 50 kilometres - and sustainability is a fundamental principle for their company. 

To quote from their web site, their aim is: 

“To create trust and honesty towards customers and retailers, we work with complete transparency in all aspects of our operations. In this way we want to create an understanding of our enterprise and justify the price of our products. Our customers should feel certain that they are buying a sustainable piece of furniture at the right price, and to ensure that the planet’s eco system is kept in balance, the lifespan of the piece should reflect the time it takes for a replanted seedling to generate the same amount of material.”

Go to the web site and you can see how each piece of furniture is numbered and it is possible to trace the source of all materials.

What seems particularly important here is that they are looking back to an earlier model for local or regional production using local materials. Although they are reassessing traditional techniques, they are applying them to designs that are without any doubt contemporary. This is not about returning to forms and styles from the past with a sense of nostalgia but is a clear and rational attempt to bring forward into the 21st century techniques and principles that, for many different reasons, were forgotten or ignored or deliberately abandoned in the last decades of the last century.

Linseed oil paint is still used in Sweden and has particular qualities. It usually has a soft matt finish on woodwork and for external use for barns and for timber houses and for doors it lets the wood breathe and with sun and rain and frost the colour slowly changes and mellows. The comparable finish in English vernacular architecture is to use lime wash over oak framing on cottages and farm buildings.

Open-air museums in Aarhus at Den Gamle By, at the museum north of Copenhagen at Frilandsmuseet, and the museum in Lund and the Stockholm open air museum all have information and displays about the use of traditional paints and wood finishes.

It is fantastic to see that young designers are reassessing their use for contemporary production. 

* Quote taken from New Nordic Design by Dorothea Gundtoft, published by Thames & Hudson

 

information about linseed oil paint from Den Gamle By, Aarhus

too restrained?

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If the there were too many greys and stone colour and too much subtle good taste in ‘just the right tone’ posted yesterday then Copenhagen also has an amazing selection of historic buildings decorated with ornate moulded brickwork or ceramic tiles. Through the second half of the 19th century there must have been workshops and small factories around the city and a highly-skilled workforce of craftsmen to produce work of this quality.

 

Kunsthåndværke og Designere

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Over the the last month or so, most of the posts here on the site have been about Danish craftsmanship … the Biennial exhibition of Danske Kunsthåndværke og Designere, the cabinetmakers exhibiting their furniture at Øregaard, the work of ceramicists, craft and design at Superobjekt gallery in Copenhagen, Kunstforeningen af 14 August at Paustian and, most recently, a review of the exhibition Mindcraft15 that has just opened at Designmuseum Danmark.

Thinking about the works seen in these exhibitions, there seems to be some confusion about how we use the word craft - particularly in England but also in Scandinavia - or at least some ambiguity in the way we talk about and how we define craft and some uncertainty in the role we see for craftsmanship in modern design and manufacturing.

A month or so ago I was invited to one of the breakfasts that were organised as part of the Hjemlighed exhibition in Copenhagen where craft works were exhibited in a private apartment. It was a good opportunity to talk to some of the artists who produced the pieces and to meet other artists and designers who were also there … an opportunity to talk about crafts and craftsmanship in Denmark now … as well as to have a very good breakfast and to look again at the exhibited works.

For that breakfast, the textile designer Anne Fabricius Møller had set the large table with a plain linen tablecloth. Towards the end of breakfast she produced fabric dye in various colours and a set of stamps with all the letters that spell Hjemlighed. Everyone around the table was encouraged to produce patterns or trace around crockery to create a unique piece to celebrate the event.

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getting the customer to engage with the design

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Several times on this web site, and also with designers that I have met, I have discussed how important it is to connect with a potential customer - to give them enough background story for them to ‘engage’ with the design. It really does help if a potential buyer can say ‘now I know why you designed it like that’ or ‘now I see why that was made in that way.’

In an age of social media, some buyers might expect even more back story and some people might even want to understand more about the design process or ask for more technical information or be interested in the design theory behind the product. That’s more difficult for a designer to judge. How much information is too much information? Do you sell more or sell more or less easily if a design moves from being an impulse buy to being a carefully considered purchase?

Three different companies at Finderskeepers at the weekend have taken buyer participation further than most and I thought it might be interesting here to look at the way they have tried to involve their customers.

Wood Junkie

Jonas Jensen started his company Wood Junkie just over a year ago. His products are simple, beautifully proportioned and really well made so customers are attracted initially by the appearance and then quickly move on to appreciate the quality of the wood and of the quality of the workmanship and finish. But there is a next stage.

His current catalogue has a number of shelves, circular tables and items such as a clock with a drop-shaped face. But all can be adapted or modified to suit a change of mood or changing needs … so the deeper shelves and tables have circular drop ins that take cylindrical glass burners, plant holders, a holder for three night lights or trays in contrasting materials. There is also a choice from two different base/leg types. Wider shelves have combinations of hollows and pierced slots to take keys or jewellery if they are used in a hallway or as a bedside shelf and the narrow shelves have an angled front edge that forms a rail with wood blocks for candle holders that can be moved along to sit at any position along the length. 

Wood Junkie have produced a video for their Instagram site to show how easy these transformations are ... in the film a girl comes in and changes the table over to a burner before settling back on the sofa to relax. 

Even the Drop Clock has three slots in the back and a short tab of wood that acts as a foot that can be moved to set the clock in different positions.

 
 

The designs are flexible and adaptable … so to an extent they can be customised … but it also taps into the idea that well-made, high-quality design can and should have a role in your life for much longer. If furniture or design objects are cheap and are purchased for the short term then it doesn’t matter if they are more obviously of a style that is fashionable now but will soon date and it doesn’t matter if your life or your needs change because a cheap item can be dumped and replaced. But if you are buying a well-made and well-designed piece of furniture it is better if the style is less obvious and less likely to date and it certainly helps if the piece is, to some extent flexible or adaptable, changing as your life changes.

Wood Junkie