shop window Mads Norgaard for 3daysofdesign

 

 

Many of the stores around the city get involved with 3daysofdesign.

On Strøget - the great pedestrianised shopping street that runs east west through the centre of the city - the Copenhagen fashion brand Mads Norgaard, used their front shop window for "live workshops" with a tightly-packed programme of demonstrations by craftsmen making products from many of the best-known design companies and design workshops.

Here, in one of the sessions in the programme on the first day, a cabinet maker from PP Møbler was working on shaping and finishing the seat of their new three-legged Sela Stool designed by the Brazilian artist Ricardo Graham Ferreira. The stools are made in oak, ash, cherry or beech and the wave profile of the shape means that the craftsmen can bring out the character of the pattern of the grain in each block of timber.

PP Møbler

Dine, Drink, Daze & Dream - at Moltkes Palæ for 3daysofdesign

 

Elephant Chair designed for NORR11 by Kristian Sofus Hansen and manufactured by Kvist Industries

 

For 3daysofdesign, Træ- og møbelindustrien or the Association of Danish Wood and Furniture Industries took over the main rooms on the street frontage of Moltkes Palæ on Bredgade in the centre of Copenhagen.

It was good to see the work of the serious side of the furniture industry with stands here representing the work of Cane-line; HUBE, Kvist Industries, Magnus Olesen, Møbelsnedkeri Kjeldtoft; PP Møbler; Skovby Møbler; Re Nature Beds; Republic of Fritz Hansen and WON. This was the crucial but, shall we say, the less hyped and primped up part of the industry.

As some of the style journalists or bloggers rush from venue to venue taking square pictures of the amazing plates of finger food and grab another glass of booze, they might do well to remember that these are the factories that make the furniture that sits under the label. That's not to say this was all about fork-lift trucks and export paperwork … it was styled by the design studio All the Way to Paris and certainly did not look like a trade show … but what was shown very clearly was exactly the same passion and enthusiasm for design and for high-quality production that is the hall mark of the Danish furniture industry as it developed through the 1950s.

NO1 - new chair from Fritz Hansen designed by Nendo

 

Fritz Hansen were here but with a simple stand that just showed the chair they have just launched - Chair NO1 by the designer Nendo. This is an interesting chair that has a beautiful and very elegant curved seat and plain curved back in laminated wood on a relatively traditional frame in turned and joined wood that, in terms of style, is a hybrid of traditional Japanese and Danish forms. This was not a display for the glamour life-style magazines but appropriately something to show to fellow manufacturers.

PP Møbler showed a desk by Wegner and an office chair - the 502 - designed by Hans Wegner. They did not need to show more … every manufacturer here would know the catalogue of PP Møbler … but again it was all about meeting fellow professionals for what is in part a social event and in part a way of entertaining established clients and a venue for making new business contacts. Even if you are only slightly interested in the workings of what is behind the branded stores this is fascinating.

PP Møbler is not a furniture factory but are still a major workshop of cabinetmakers. They have to be commercially astute to survive but, for them, a core element is  maintaining the system of training and apprenticeships … after all, the life-blood of the Danish industry.

That's not to suggest that the other companies are production-line factories and there is a fascinating symbiotic relationship between these manufacturers, the design companies they serve; established designers, working either in house or working independently; and the young designers and the young furniture makers coming up through the system.

Talking to the representative from Kvist, I was asking about the Elephant chair that they manufacture for the design company NORR11, when the team from NORR11 arrived and there was a brief opportunity to talk to Kristian Sofus Hansen who designed the chair. I hope to be able to do a longer profile on this chair which could be a place to discuss how a design evolves and to explore that crucial relationship between designer, design company and manufacturer.