By Jessica Whittaker
Furniture designers like Hans J. Wegner ones said "A chair is to have no backside. It should be beautiful from all sides and angles."
Some of the most beautiful and luxurious furniture ever to be produced has come out of Denmark. The country seems to breed some of the most innovative furniture designing minds ever and the entire world can bask in the luxury that these men and women produce. Simple lines and minimalist style that didn't lose functionality was the type of furniture that Hans J. Wegner preferred to design.
Born April 2, 1914 to a cobbler and his wife, Wegner worked as a carpenter's child apprentice from a very young age. He served the mandatory military time the country of Denmark required before going on to a technical college and then the School of Arts and Crafts. He followed this with time at the Architectural Academy in Copenhagen and even his earliest furniture designs – no doubt done for his college classes - show the minimalist style he became known for. One of his first designs was an armchair with sloping armrests that reminds you of relaxed wrists. His approach to furniture design was by "stripping the old chairs of their outer style and letting them appear in their pure construction."
A highly intelligent designer who understood the value of networking in the late 1930s and 1940s, Wegner attended many shows during his college years. When he graduated from college, he was hired by Arne Jacobsen, another well known Danish furniture designer, at the drawing office and his very assignment was to draw the furniture for the new city hall building in Aarhus that Jacobsen would design. He went on to start his own company and partnered with Borge Mogensen and Erik Kold to draw furniture for the Danish grocery store chain FDB. This furniture – inexpensive but of high quality – eventually made its way into the international market.
As Wegner's designs took hold around the world, he started working with PP Mobler, the company that still produces his designs today and who he almost exclusively designed for in later years. His famous Hoop Chair that was designed in 1965 was produced by Mobler in 1985, completely crafted in wood and not with the steel base Wegner originally intended. Additionally, Wegner designed for Johannes Hansen, Carl Handen & Son, Fritz Hansen, Getama, Fredericia Stolefabrik and many more over the years. It was only within the last ten years of Wegner's life that he stopped designing furniture and in the 93 years Wegner was alive, he designed over 500 chairs.
Wegner passed away January 26, 2007 and his furniture is still available on the market today. He won almost every major design honor and award throughout his career and was made honorary Royal designer for industry by the Royal Society of Arts in London, England. Many of Wegner's pieces can be found in museums all over the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, NY, America, and Die Neue Samlung, Munich, Germany, and twenty other museums.
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Source:www.isnare.com |
